


Unmasked

by nestasbucket



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-02-05 04:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12787062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nestasbucket/pseuds/nestasbucket
Summary: What if Elain had accidentally killed Andras and was the one taken to the Spring Court? This fic follows Elain, Lucien, and other ACOTAR characters. Some of the events of ACOTAR transpire, but not in the way they did in the novels.





	1. Shadows

“Do you remember when you first knew?”

“Knew what?”

“That she was your mate.”

“I could forget many things, but I will never forget that.”

He paused, and his metal eye whirred as if it were frantically examining that moment in his mind. His lithe frame tensed.

Nesta leaned forward to draw his attention back from his memories. A click, a whir. Focus. And he was back.

“I didn’t know the first time I saw her. I felt something, but it wasn’t recognizable as a bond. Do you know how light can feel so strange after a storm? There are these vivid colors transposed over the receding dark clouds and everything feels more...real. That is what it felt like. Everything seemed more real.”

Steps neared the door, and she raised an eyebrow. He answered with a small huff of laughter and a wide grin, and she was struck by how magical it was to see him glow, even after all these years.

“Well, same time tomorrow then?” She tucked her notebook under her arm and took one last sip of tea before standing to leave.

“Same time tomorrow. And bring an extra pencil. We’re getting to the good part.”

_______________

#### 479 years earlier

Elain yelped and shook her hand, trying to lessen the sting from the reverberations off the broom handle. _That blasted...wicked...ugh!_ She really needed to learn some proper curse words. 

Her father did not so much as flinch when she brought the broom down again with a thwack against the floor, narrowly missing the rat that sauntered off to a small hole in the foundation, unimpressed with her attempts at rodenticide. _Why can’t Feyre be here to kill this? Why can’t Nesta be here to glare at it?_

These were the darkest moments for Elain - when her sisters were gone, and it was just her alone with her father’s ghost. Nesta and Feyre loathed him for abandoning them, for disappearing into himself. They were not wrong - he had abandoned them. But she would not do the same to him. 

He was still in there. He had to be.

They thought her naive to continue loving him this way, thought that she was living in a fantasy world, denying the bleak reality of their lives. She spoke to her father as if nothing had changed, not because she believed that, but because it was one thing that could keep her from losing herself completely. The memories from their times of comfort and plenty tethered her to her sense of self.

For Elain, it was hope that sustained her, not love for her father or some fantasy that all their misfortune would magically reverse. But hope cannot sustain itself. It needs nurturing. It needs to be fed. 

Feyre kept alive through her painting, Nesta through her rage and steel will, and Elain, through her gardening, found a way to nurture her hope.

Her gardening was her weakness. She could not contemplate a life without it. To take this tiny seed and watch it push through darkness toward the light, then evolve into a new, unrecognizable life, aching itself to bring forth more life -- how is that not the very essence of hope?

But here in the quiet dark of the cabin, the bleakness washed over her like a rolling fog, leaving her hopes shrouded and murky. Her life was nothing more, in this moment, than a woman trying to kill a rat. A rat that would eat what little food they had. A rat that would bite her father’s feet while he slept. A rat that would slowly destroy them all. 

And she couldn’t stop it.

A gust of frigid wind wrapped around her ankles as her sisters burst through the door. Their excursion was quick, as promised (she would not have agreed to stay behind if they were attempting anything other than the dullest tasks), and they had returned with some provisions. 

Nesta held in her hand a small bag, which she plopped on the table. 

Feyre nudged the bag toward Elain. “Nesta finally got you a bag of marbles, Elain. It’s going to be fun times from here on out.”

Even Nesta allowed a snort of amusement at Feyre’s joke. Elain smiled, cherishing that little moment between them. They were still in there, not all buried just yet.

“It is, in fact, poison,” Nesta explained. “A special present for our _unwelcome guest_ ,” she finished, her face contorting with disgust, looking eerily like their mother’s face had whenever she neared the horse stables.

Elain was genuinely shocked by their thoughtfulness. “Oh, thank you! I dislike that… _vermin_ so much!”

Feyre gasped, “Language, Elain!”

Feyre was in far too good a mood. Perhaps she had met with Isaac this morning. Elain had long since stopped judging Feyre for seeking what comfort she could. Indeed, she was finding herself waking from passionate dreams more and more often, with her body pressed too tightly against one of them, subconsciously seeking that comfort. What little shame she felt was quickly dwarfed by disappointment.

She hated herself for feeling jealousy. She did not want Isaac herself, or any man she’d met thus far for that matter, but she found herself wanting… _someone_. The very idea of someone looking at her longingly was enough to send shudders through her body. No one, she thought, should be so deprived of connection. Of love. _None of this was right_.

Her sisters had resumed shelving and storing the provisions they’d procured. Elain grabbed the small bag of poison, considering where it might best be applied.

“Nesta, what is this poison made of exactly?”

Nesta paused, setting the flour sack down, her brows furrowed in thought. “It’s made from some kind of ground-up plant. Fox-something.”

Oh, it can’t be. Elain should not be angry. There were only good intentions behind this purchase.

“Foxglove?”

“Mm, yes, that sounds right,” Nesta distractedly replied.

Elain sighed in exasperation. “Nesta, I have fifty foxglove plants behind the cabin! The tall ones – those are all foxglove! You shouldn’t have spent what little money we have on this!”

Feyre stepped between the two, sensing an imminent explosion from Nesta, whose nostrils were flaring in a desperate attempt to calm her breathing.

“Elain, we didn’t know. We were just trying to help,” Feyre calmly explained.

Nesta snorted and shook her head, “If you’re growing poisonous plants around our home, why would you not have used them to kill that rat already?”

Elain’s voice was far weaker than she’d wanted it to be when she said, “Well, I didn’t know they were poisonous until just now.”

Nesta looked her in the eye and her face softened. She was never any good at staying angry at Elain, which Elain may have used to her advantage more than once.

“Well, we may not have much food or money, but we’re rich in poison. So there’s that, I guess. Perhaps we ought to be harvesting those fox-whatever plants of yours and selling the poison ourselves.”

Feyre’s eyebrows rose as she mumbled “Not a bad idea, Nes.”

____________________

Elain cracked an eye open, the other stuck firmly shut with sleep. She made no attempt to move, as she was nestled between her sleeping sisters. It wasn’t that she didn’t wish to wake them so much as she didn’t wish to freeze as soon as she extracted herself from the cocoon.

And then she heard it again. 

The scratching. The little feet. The vermin.

She quickly pulled her legs up, careful to not disturb the blankets too much, and then promptly lost her balance trying to crawl over Nesta. Her body flopped onto Nesta’s curled frame. In trying to move off her as quickly as possible, she merely managed to smother Nesta’s face into the pillow as she pushed off her.

“Sorry!”, she whisper-yelled, grabbing her cloak to trap what little body heat remained. Nesta muttered a series of curses into the pillow, which Elain silently vowed to remember for future rat encounters.

She tracked the sound to a small bookcase pushed against an outer wall. Peering behind it, she could see a very dark shape, distinctly rat-like. She grabbed the bag of ground foxglove and attempted to sprinkle some behind the bookcase only for the rat to…disappear.

Pulling the bookshelf away from the wall, she surveyed the rather sizeable hole in the foundation of the house. A perfect portal to warmth and food, and a quick escape from smashing brooms.

 _Would the rat even eat the poison? Why would it, given it looks and tastes nothing like the food it’s used to?_ She’d have to trick it. 

She took a small and rather dried bit of biscuit and a decidedly sad chunk of potato and rolled them in the foxglove, placing a little behind the bookshelf. But perhaps it would be best to get to it before it got inside. A dead rat outside is certainly better than a dead rat inside.

Grabbing her boots, Elain slipped out the door. Walking around the foundation until she reached the rat-sized opening, she pushed some rocks in front of it to discourage further re-entry, then proceeded to drop bits of poisoned food amongst the flowers behind the house. 

Her own foxglove were no longer blooming, done until the spring. In fact, everything was arcing toward winter sleep - turned brown and grey, dropping to the ground to return to the earth. She squatted amongst the dead stems, closed her eyes, and imagined the Foxglove in summer, climbing to her waist and covered in bright flowers shaped like silent bells, hanging down shyly. 

To really see them, you have to get on their level and gently lift the lavender blossoms to peer inside. 

Elain opened her eyes, crumbled the last bits of food, and scattered them around. That should do it.

She straightened and brushed her hands on her cloak, but quickly realized she ought to rinse them in the creek lest she accidentally poison them all preparing dinner.

Then, she felt it. A prickling in her neck, her spine, her fingertips. Flashes of light casting shadows behind her eyes: A wolf, impossibly large; A beast, rising up; A fox, talking without moving his mouth; Gargantuan bats, swarming.

They had come several times before, the shadows.

The first time had been when she was very small. She saw a shadow of a child, lying fallen amongst large rocks. A week later, little Feyre lost her footing on a grassy hill, sod loosened by recent rains, and tumbled onto rocks below. Feyre had bounded away with no more than a few tears and mere cuts and bruises. But it terrified Elain. Her little sister might have died in a few seconds time. This terror was the shattering of the illusion of safety, and the knowledge she could not always be there to protect her little sister.

When she was a bit older, she saw shadows of a woman in a bed that slowly swallowed her body until she was gone entirely. She watched her mother fall sick and wither away to nothing not long after, the shadowed scene come to life. This was a different sort of terror - the terror that comes with realizing that life and death have no regard for your personal wishes.

The shadows came one more time, a few years later. She saw the shadow of a man, writhing in agony. A week later, the men came for her father. They destroyed him. And it terrified her. This time it was the terror of watching your heroes fall, of being assaulted by the knowledge that your innocence is not meant to survive.

The terror Elain felt now, after this new shadow dissolved, was the terror of knowing. The shadows always became real. And there was only one place where these sorts of monsters lived. 

____________________

Miles away, a creature eased through thick brambles and dipped its head to the stream bed. It had almost completely dried up, but he lapped at the damp earth, desperate for water. His unnaturally large size parted the air in the forest, and whatever small creatures still lived in these deep woods were nowhere to be found. His stomach roiled as he swallowed. He’d not found much food in days and hadn’t expected to go so long without finding what he sought, either. He would need to turn back soon unless he wished to starve in this miserable world.

It was hard to think in this form, his essence reduced to animal instinct. He knew only his need for food, water, and death. That was his mission. He _did_ intend to die here, but only at the hands of a woman. He couldn’t think why. He couldn’t remember the name of the fox who bade him farewell, days ago at the edge of the forest. But he knew he could not fail. There was no more time.


	2. Seeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elain is taken by Tamlin to the Spring Court in response to Andras' death. She has to face her new life, draw strength in her self, and find a way to survive. She is frustrated in her developing relationship with Lucien.

“You can’t really know someone, can you? You spend years of your life with people who form ideas of who you are based on moments with you, based on what you might say or do, but the truth of it is always hidden inside you. It’s never complete and never quite the truth. How do you write a book about people and really tell their story?”

Nesta didn’t look up from her notebook.

“Does Cassian know you?”

That got her attention. 

“Oh, he certainly _thinks_ he does.” She tapped her pencil on the table and nudged a crumb off the edge. “He knows more of me than anyone else and that is no small thing.”

“No, it is not.”

He pulled his limbs tight together in the armchair. A click, a whir.

“After Jesminda, I tried to destroy myself. I thought I must become someone else, someone who would not have let that happen to her. Someone who would have found a way to save her. But you can’t become someone else, can you? You must atone for yourself. I thought I could escape atonement, and that arrogance brought Amarantha’s wrath upon us all. She should not have stopped at my eye.”

Nesta’s head shook furiously.

“You know that’s not true. You are not to blame for any of that.”

“I know that they all showed up Under the Mountain, at least in some part, because of me. And I know I will never not feel guilt for being the pawn in that game. Had I not provoked her…”

“Had you not provoked her, I would not be here talking to you. I would have died a human 400 years ago, probably at the hands of some angry man. And that’s assuming my sisters and I wouldn’t have just starved to death. Had you not provoked Amarantha, what would have become of Elain? Of Rhys? Look at what Prythian has become because she tried to destroy it. The world we inhabit now was reborn when Feyre was, in the bowels of that darkness. There is no room for regret in this story.”

He cocked his head to the side and gave her a half-smile.  
“I wasn’t fishing for compliments, I’ll have you know.”

Nesta shrugged. “Well, I think you know better than to come to me for an ego boost.”

His lips parted with an amused huff.

“My point is, at the time I first met her, I did not really have a sense of myself anymore. I had tried to destroy it, tried to ignore the worst parts, and had failed to nurture whatever goodness was once there. After Tamlin helped me with my brothers and took me in, we both were living in this isolation and paranoia. We fed into it and pulled each other down further, with this dread over the curse and the spreading blight. For someone like Elain to show up...it was like someone had thrown open the shutters and I suddenly realized we were covered in dust.”

________________________________________

The creature was drawn to the faint glow of light through the dirty windows and the smell of wood smoke, curling lazily out the chimney. But he was weak. His limbs shook as he neared the back of the cabin. He’d been seeing things for the last few hours, tricks of an undernourished mind. 

He could not fail.

There were women here. He could smell them. And another scent, only closer. Sniffing the ground, he discovered its source - discarded bits of food. _Wasteful humans_. It was dried out and hardly appealing, but he’d need the energy to continue looking if nothing came of the women here. He swallowed the bread and bit into the potato. 

He could not fail. 

Considering his weak state, he thought it best to lie down to rest a minute before moving to the front of the house. Gather his strength. And then he felt it. 

His heart beating too hard. Then not hard enough. His lungs burning. His stomach cramping. He pawed frantically, furiously at the ground in a hopeless fight.

The last thought the wolf had before succumbing to death was of the fox. He remembered his name:

Lucien.

________________________________________

Tamlin had been sleeping fitfully for weeks, consumed with how little time was left to lift the curse. But he had been deep asleep when his door was flung open, cracking against the wall. His friend stood shadowed, panting.

“Andras is dead. There is a woman.”

________________________________________

Elain woke atop the horse, disoriented and frightened. The nightmare of being taken from her home by a beast had followed her from sleep and taken up residence in her waking life. She took in her surroundings and found only dark, endless forest. A new terror whispered in her head. Lost hope...she was leaving her home, leaving the human lands, and she would not return.

She drank from a canteen he offered her, heedless of her cautious instincts. He could kill her with a careless swipe, why would he bother with tainting the water? It would be so easy, to destroy her fragile human body with his massive claws. Why did he not kill her? Why go through the trouble of taking her? 

Elain clung to her curiosity, wrapped herself in the distraction of it, and followed him farther and farther from home. As they rode on, her mind was unable to focus. The dim forest passed by unnoticed, while her mind insistently turned instead to replaying the events of the past day with awful, inescapable clarity: 

The intrusion of the beast into their home. Feyre scurrying for a weapon, only to be pinned to the wall by his arm. Nesta screaming obscenities and demands while brandishing the poker from the fireplace as she pushed Elain behind her. Her father crying, pleading that the beast take him instead. And herself, shaking in the corner with the terror of knowing, knowing that the shadows from her vision had come alive again. The giant wolf lay dead outside the cabin. It did not matter that she never even saw the wolf before he died. It did not matter that there was no intent to kill. The wolf was dead, and retribution was due.

Elain couldn’t remember her sisters’ words, yelled after her. She could only recall the looks on their faces: rage and confusion. Her father had held his face in his hands, unable to watch her go. Her gut ached with horrible apprehension, that her two sisters, both cunning and fierce, would stop at nothing to find her and in doing so, would seal their fate.

The sudden tensing of the horse beneath her jolted Elain from her reverie. At last, they had reached it. The Wall. The last bastion of protection the feeble humans had. A chill foreboding emanated from it. She stopped her horse and it shifted uneasily.

The fae lands of Prythian lay just a few feet away.

Suddenly, she couldn’t stop the tears. They cascaded down her cheeks as she mourned everything she had ever been and ever known. All of her life, all of her memories, all of her turned to dust in that moment. Once she crossed this invisible border she would be forever lost. Elain would be no more, for who are we with no one to know us?

The beast huffed impatiently as he turned to her. She did not meet his eyes, but felt them boring into her own, waiting for her to follow. 

Elain had hoped, at least, that she would feel _something_ crossing into the world of the fae. A blast of wind to the face, a jolt, a shiver. Something to acknowledge the passage. But the world was still, and she soon forgot everything as she took in the impossible beauty now before her. The greys and browns of deathly winter behind her gave way to lush, verdant life. Plants the likes of which she’d never seen before sprouted forth in colors too vivid to be real. The smells intoxicated her. If someone had asked her to describe paradise, it would look like this: endless gardens and color and the smell of growth and rebirth.

The Elain of two days ago would let this beauty penetrate her skin and inhabit her bones. Hope would blossom anew.

But that Elain lived on the other side of the wall. She was sealed away, a keepsake from another life. Here she must be someone else. Someone who could survive long enough to go back and find herself again. In this moment, following the beast through bloom-laden trellises up a gravel path, she resolved to survive. This would not be the end of her story.

The beast stepped aside as the path widened before grand stairs leading to the entry of the house.

Not a house. A good deal more than a house.

She loathed herself momentarily as a thrill shot through her upon entering this ornate and grand place. She remembered their lives before the money disappeared, remembered this feeling of marveling at grandeur.

Just as she opened her mouth to ask where she was and what she was to do, a flash of light stunned her, and she was met with the beast no more. A masked man now stood before her, oddly fitting in this gaudy setting. No, not a man. The elongated ears, the strange smoothness of the skin, every feature exaggerated in ways she couldn’t quite grasp. He was high fae. Had she any food in her stomach, she might have vomited.

Her captor proceeded to the dining room and she followed, having lost any conscious thoughts beyond shock and an undercurrent of fear.

He sat himself at the far end of the long table, which was lavished with more food than she had ever seen. Next to him sat another fae male, masked as a fox, who seemed uninterested in acknowledging her at all. 

“Sit and eat.”

Elain stood frozen in place. 

She would note, years later, that in this moment she was certain that time did slow as the other male finally deigned to lift his head to look at her. She’d never seen anyone look quite like him. She’d never seen hair that color - a deep russet that was braided and tossed over his shoulder. She’d never seen a person look like fire was roiling beneath his skin. Men did not look like this. 

And then she noticed his eye, if one could even call it that. Tiny gold metallic parts moved almost imperceptibly as he took her in. It was horrible and beautiful. _This is all horrible and beautiful_. 

Elain’s eyes met his, and she heard precisely three clicks and a whir.

“Lucien, stop staring.”

________________________________________

Shafts of afternoon sunlight angled through the tall windows of the library and Elain struggled not to fall asleep in the oversized chair. She’d been combing through books of Prythian history to understand the place she found herself trapped in. Her eyes settled on the mural, covering almost an entire wall. It depicted the history of the lands, but more importantly, it contained a map. 

She’d wasted no time in memorizing the different courts, the approximate border locations, the access points to water and ports. Elain doubted she’d ever run, not with so many terrifying creatures about. The high lord who had taken her, Tamlin, had spoken little to her, but when he did, it was often words of warning. She would be safe enough in the house, and on his personal grounds, but beyond that was certain death for a human. She studied these maps nonetheless, because should her sisters show up, she’d like to be of some use in the escape.

She began reciting what she knew, to test her knowledge.

“Tamlin, Spring Court. Autumn Court, where Lucien is from. It has eastern coastline. Summer Court has a western coast. North of Summer and Autumn is Winter Court with two coastlines, but mountainous. Then...Under the Mountain.”

This one perplexed her. She couldn’t find anything useful to tell her what it was. It didn’t seem to be a court. She would need to come up with a clever way to ask Lucien about it.

Elain found herself spending more and more time with Lucien. Tamlin was gone for days at a time, hunting creatures and other mysterious tasks. On days Tamlin was absent, Lucien had begun inviting Elain to accompany him on patrols. Their conversations were pleasant enough, despite his occasional barbs about her human inferiority. Lucien mentioned his friend, Andras, only once in passing. Despite how unfair it seemed for her to be punished for his accidental death, she did feel genuine regret. Elain did not have Nesta’s reservoir of hate or Feyre’s cold cunning. She had her own empathetic nurturing. And while she knew she would have to adapt to survive this place, she did not intend to become a villain. Elain was fundamentally good.

Lucien didn’t mention much of consequence during their conversation. She did not know what had happened in Lucien’s life to cause him to flee his home and family, what had caused the rift. Nor what gave him the scar and took his eye, although she imagined it likely the two were related. But he could not conceal that he had known great pain. It was etched in his countenance as clearly as the scars on his face.

On one such ride, after one such particularly hurtful comment, Elain hit back. “I’m pathetic and ignorant?!” He had called humans such things countless times, understandably hating them just as humans inevitably hated fae, but something snapped in her this time. “I’m curious, Lucien, how someone with an animal mask stuck to his face can fling accusations like that so effortlessly? Am I supposed to respect you when you look like that? When you’re not strong enough to even remove it? You know nothing of humans. You are the ignorant one!”

Damn him, he actually looked hurt. 

Elain turned and rode back without a word, struggling to hold onto her unusual anger. Lucien trailed a good distance behind. She could feel him watching her and was struck by the thought that he would probably keep a protective eye on her no matter how much she hurt him. He was sometimes an ass, but he was a loyal and honorable ass.

She was tired of his casual cruelty, borne from some past she wasn’t privy to. Tamlin may be distant and a woefully inadequate conversationalist, but he was never cruel to her. 

When she retired to her bedroom that evening, she found a note on the floor, just inside the door. She opened it and found no words, no indication of who had left it. There was, however, a tiny bag pinned to it, and inside, a handful of seeds. And when she poured them into her palm, she felt warmth travel from her hand up her arm and settle somewhere in her chest.


	3. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calanmai. Sex dreams. TENSION.

**Chapter 3**

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? No, let me rephrase. What’s something you did that made you feel the worst about yourself?”

Nesta considered his question, and whether she would answer it. “Why are you always trying to interview me in the middle of  _ me _ interviewing  _ you _ ?”

“I’m stalling for time.” He smirked and raised an eyebrow, a plea to play along.

“Well, in that case, I’ll answer.” Her eyes drifted toward the window, pausing to take in her reflection in the glass. “I won’t say it’s...regret, but I do feel...shame. For how...difficult I was with Feyre, when she was young. She didn’t deserve it, and I don’t even really understand why I did it. I didn’t feel particularly bad about it at the time. I didn’t feel much of anything besides anger back then. But later, it weighed heavily on me. We’ve moved on, but I think I will always feel I owe penance for that.”

Lucien nodded and looked down. He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs, one hand cradling the other in the empty space between his knees. He loosed a breath.

“What I did to Elain on Calanmai was...well, I’ve never felt more horrid than I did that night. And for a long time after. I knew I had to do it. Logically, it was the only choice. I couldn’t...I couldn’t be selfish for once. But that look on her face haunts me. It will  _ always _ haunt me.”

* * *

 

Tamlin found Elain the next morning with her hands covered in dirt. She was crouched along a quiet path just south of the house. He approached silently along the path, then paused to watch her. He had become used to her presence, but this was the first time he was really struck by her simple beauty. Soft sunlight behind her cast a shimmering halo around her silhouette, accentuating her lithe features. As he continued forward, she looked up at the sound of his footsteps - startled to see him so close. Sweat beaded on her brow, and she wiped it away with her arm, leaving a streak of dirt across her forehead.

Tamlin had been watching her from a distance for weeks, frozen in a state of uncertainty. Perhaps it was the pressure of the deadline looming. Perhaps he’d just forgotten how to connect with another person. But whenever she was near, he felt nervous and insecure. His conversations defaulted to the mundane and impersonal.

She was beautiful and warm and didn’t seem intent on holding a grudge against him for taking her away from her family, from her life. She was making it so easy, and he couldn’t find a way past his own walls and fears to move on it.

But when he saw her looking up at him, with dirt smeared across her forehead, he felt himself on some sort of precipice.

“Have you joined the gardening staff then?”

Elain brushed her hands together, shaking off loose bits of soil. “No, although I’m not opposed to the idea,” she said with a wink.

“I don’t think anyone has ever winked at me before.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

“Are you sure? Not even Lucien?”

“Now you’re teasing me. Another first.”

“I’m certain that’s not true!” She stood and took a step closer to him. “I just wanted to plant these seeds, and this seemed like a nice, sunny spot. I don’t know  _ exactly _ what they’ll become, so I’m hoping full sun works. Is this... is it okay for me to plant them here? I suppose I should have asked.”

“You needn’t ask. You can plant wherever you’d like. You like flowers and gardens, it seems?”

She merely smiled. He tried again.

“Right. Well, do you prefer the manicured gardens or the wilder groves?”

“I love these gardens. They’re exquisite! But, I’ve not seen any wild groves around here to compare them with. Are there some nearby?”

Tamlin glanced westward, a thoughtful look on his face. “If you’re done here, I can take you.”

Elain was grateful she’d chosen a longer dress this morning, as the trail they were on barely qualified as one, and she found herself stuck more than once with cockleburs and twigs as they ascended a small rise. The trees were larger and denser here, blocking out much of the sunlight, but as they reached the crest there was a clearing. A beam of sunlight pierced through the canopy to illuminate a small pond, circled by wildflowers. A grove of lilacs perfumed the warm air.

Elain beamed and, looking to Tamlin, swallowed her words at the unexpected sight of him beaming right back at her.

He strolled to the edge of the pond and sat on a flat rock, then began removing his boots and rolling up his pants. Tamlin looked back at her expectantly. So, she sat beside him, removed her shoes and turned away shyly to remove her stockings. When she turned back, he was sitting with his feet dangling in the shimmering water, slowly kicking them back and forth. He looked nothing like the stoic and intimidating high lord she had seen each day since arriving here. Instead, he looked almost boyish.

She dipped her feet in and was shocked by the feel, warm and almost viscous. When she moved her feet, they left trails of glittery effervescence in their wake.

“What is this place, this pool?”

“An enchanted one. It has always been like this, for as long as I can remember. I found it one day when I was playing with my brothers. They told me not to touch it, that it would melt me. So, I would come here and just throw rocks in to see what would happen. The rocks never melted, so one day I just stuck the end of my pinky finger in it. I figured I could afford to lose that, if it did melt. But nothing happened.”

“Have you ever gone swimming in it?”

“I have. It’s been a very long time since I did that. The water feels heavy - not like you’re going to sink, more like the pond is enveloping you...sealing itself around you.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, the only sounds were the chirping of birds in the branches high above and the gentle lapping of the water, stirred up by their swaying feet.Tamlin reached into his pocket and pulled out a kerchief, then dipped a corner of it into the water. He turned to Elain and cupped her chin in his hand. She instinctively moved to pull away, not expecting his touch, but he held firm and turned her head to him. He was suddenly very close, and his breath whispered against her lips as he began wiping the dirt from her forehead. Her eyes fluttered shut, unable to process his nearness.

Dirt gone, hee put the kerchief away but kept hold of her chin. Elain’s eyes were frozen shut, and she was paralyzed by the realization that she had always wanted someone to kiss her in a moment like this. Feeling this content in a place of such beauty - she had imagined this moment countless times, her eyes closed as she sat in front of the dwindling fireplace while waiting in the bleak cottage for Feyre to return from hunting.  

But he didn’t kiss her, and when she opened her eyes he dropped his hand, made a small noise in his throat, and turned back toward the water.

He began talking, but Elain could not comprehend his words. Her face was flushed, and she felt drunk, dizzy, confused. She had  _ wanted _ him to kiss her and it made no sense. They barely ever spoke outside of dinners and occasional strolls, and most of her time had been spent with Lucien. So why was she feeling this for him? Was it simply borne of loneliness? Was this water casting some sort of spell over her? She couldn’t discount the possibility that his magic was playing some part in this, but she also didn’t think he would use it that way, to manipulate her. Her body at odds with her mind, she breathed deeply, wrestling for control. His next words pulled her out of her trance.

“You’ll need to stay in the house. I cannot protect you that night and there will be creatures about who will not stop at coming after you, despite of my instructions.”

“Sorry...I...I missed what you were saying. You can’t protect me, wh...?”

“Do not concern yourself with the details. Just do what you’re told and stay inside.”

Elain nodded but felt something strange now between them. The boyish figure had become the intimidating high lord again, dispassionately ruling his court. Reality seeped into her mind as she contemplated Tamlin’s secrets, his unwillingness to trust her. It left her feeling trapped and isolated. Suddenly, she wanted very much to be away from this place. Away from him.

He must have sensed the tension as well. They both moved to dry off. The walk back was uncomfortably silent; neither spoke so much as a word. When they reached the grounds Tamlin paused to look at her, but he didn’t break the silence. After a moment, he continued on his separate way.

That evening she took dinner alone, then stopped by the kitchens to get some tea. She took a steaming mug with her to watch the sun set through the tall windows of the library. As she pulled the large library doors shut behind her, she heard the faint squeak of leather and turned to find Lucien, casually slumped in a chair.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

His feet were propped up on a small table and a book lay open on his lap. More books were stacked neatly on the table before him. His hair was unbound, and the way it fell over his shoulders softened the lines of his jaw.

“You didn’t. There is certainly room for more than one person in here. Come. Sit.”

Choosing a loveseat near Lucien, Elain noticed his warmth had filled the corner of the room where he sat. To her surprise, she was relieved to see him. She didn’t like how they’d last parted, but she didn’t particularly know the way forward either.

“I took the liberty of pulling out some botany books I thought might be of interest to you.”

“Did you?” Elain leaned against the arm of the small sofa and picked up the books he’d stacked on the table.  _ Prythian Climate Zones _ .  _ Native Plants of the Southern Climes _ .  _ Grand Gardens of The Spring Court _ . Even an illustrated  _ Encyclopedia of Perennials _ .

“Lucien, that was very kind of you. I wouldn’t have known where to find them in here.”

“No, it’s not the best organized of libraries. But I see you’ve managed to find some of my military history books,” he acknowledged as he gestured to a small stack of thick, old books on a table in the far corner of the room.

“Yours? I didn’t realize they were yours. I didn’t know you read. Well, I mean, of course you read, I just...”

“I’m not completely ignorant, you see,” he said with a sly grin. He was apologizing by way of teasing, and in this moment, he reminded her very much of Feyre. “I was very pleased to see you took an interest in them. The truth is, conversations can get a little stale after hundreds of years...I think Tamlin and I have run out of new things to say about which military strategies were most advantageous in historic battles. I imagine you might have some different things to say. A fresh perspective. If you ever want to talk about that with me, that is. Or wanted to just talk...with me...or not...you wouldn’t have to of course...just if you had something to say or questions I could...we could not talk too...not talking is…”

“Lucien.” She couldn’t stop herself from smiling.  _ This day was taking such a strange turn _ . “The seeds.  _ You _ left them for me?”

He would not meet her eyes but shifted uncomfortably in his seat and nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I found them in a storage shed and thought they shouldn’t go to waste in there.”

“Thank you. Truly. I’ve missed getting my hands dirty.”

Silence fell over the room. Elain moved to a seat directly across from him and waited for him to look up.

“Would you tell me what’s happening, this ceremony everyone is preparing for? Tamlin told me I needed to stay inside for my safety, that there would be a celebration or something, that it was too dangerous for me. But I don’t understand. Lucien, what is he talking about?”

Lucien shifted in his seat. Two clicks, a whir.

“You should heed his warning, Elain. Calanmai, the Fire Night, is very dangerous for you.”

“I’m not a child. Tell me why.”

Lucien hesitated, cleared his throat, and told her. Told her about the rite Tamlin would perform to ensure a fruitful season. About the animal instincts that would rule the night. About what would happen if she was near. And he watched her skin redden, almost pulsing with heat while he told her.

Lucien wondered if this was more than mere embarrassment, if something was happening between her and Tamlin. And he hated himself for the panic rising in him at the thought that she might fall in love with Tamlin someday. That she would be the one to break the curse.

“You’ll be there? At the rite?”

He nodded. “Yes, I will.”

* * *

 

Elain went to one more person to get answers about that night, to confirm what Lucien had told her. Alis, a lesser fae and one of the many servants at the estate, had been assigned to take care of her needs. Alis was always a welcome sight in this unfamiliar place. It reminded her of governesses from her youth, before the money was gone. It was comforting to have someone who was there in a more intimate capacity, watching over you.

Elain broached the subject while preparing for bed. Alis was not always forthcoming, but the look in her eyes as soon as Elain uttered “Calanmai” convinced her; she knew before Alis said a word that everything Lucien had said was true.

A sense of foreboding swelled in her as she settled in her bed.

That night, Elain dreamed.

In her dream she was lying in the clearing where she’d gone with Tamlin, and the tops of the trees were all burning, sending wild shadows dancing across her body. She felt hot, but not from the fire. The heat was emanating from her core and pulsing out to her fingertips.

She sensed movement and, turning her head, saw a shadow crawling toward her: A silhouette dripping with the viscous, shimmery water from the pond. Looming ever closer, he eased himself over her until he straddled her body, still dripping. He dipped his head forward, and his braided hair fell onto her chest, soaking her dress. Her breath quickened, and she wanted desperately to grab his hair, to pull his braid, to bring him down upon her- but found her hands were solidly encased in earth, affixed to the ground.

He slowly lowered himself, inching backward toward her feet. Gently, he touched her ankles. His fingertips blazed a trail up her legs, stopping only when he reached the bottom of her dress. Grabbing the hem, he pushed it up until his hands, burning with heat and slick with water, rested on her thighs. His thumbs began slowly circling, inching closer, closer, closer to her center. With each circle of movement, the pressure of his hands moving upward pushed her legs farther apart. His body moved up with them, filling that space,  _ claiming _ the air between them. Her dress inched higher as her legs continued to spread and his hands were now so, so close. She arched up in desperate need for contact, but his hands held her firmly and he pushed her back down to the ground.

“Please.”

His shadowed face angled down. He lowered his head, and she felt the heat of his breath on her stomach through the fabric of her dress as he continued to slowly caress her thighs.

When she whimpered in response, he raised himself up slightly and, with one hand still gripping her thigh, grabbed the bottom of her dress again and pushed it up even further - over her stomach and to the bottom of her breasts, fully exposing her middle. He rested his face on her stomach and kissed her navel. Flicking his tongue out to taste her, he then gently bit her skin. His other hand glided over her mound, his fingers trailing down the middle, parting her, dipping and exploring.  

Elain gasped, her muscles convulsing. Her breath caught in her throat again and again as he continued the motions - dipping, circling, kissing, biting - his mouth moving lower and lower.

“More.”

At her command, he pressed his thumb against her knot and pushed a long finger into her, curling up inside her as if he was beckoning her to him. Another finger pushed in, and waves of pleasure pulsed through Elain as she pulled him in deeper. His mouth finally upon her mound, he pressed his tongue against her entrance where his fingers still pumped, then dragged it slowly, sensuously up. With a swirl and a flick of his tongue, she convulsed once more and felt herself gush around him, her hands exploding from the earth and showering dirt and seeds across their bodies.

Elain woke with a gasp, covered in a sheen of sweat, her heart racing, her nightgown a tangled mess around her chest. She took calming breaths and squeezed her eyes shut again, frustrated at the feeling of loss. Then she dropped her limp hand onto her stomach and felt, resting in her navel, a single seed.

* * *

 

Preparations for Fire Night were underway, which meant the servants were scurrying about while horses hauled away wagons filled with food, drink, torches, and firewood. As the day wore on, Elain became increasingly agitated. The effectiveness of the warnings she had been given was dependent on the depths of her imagination, and right now her mind could only fathom warm fires, seductive shadows, and exhilarating celebration. She’d always loved parties and missing this one felt more and more like punishment the closer it got.

Her frustration at missing Fire Night was perhaps heightened by the fact that her body could not shake that dream. She caught herself reliving it multiple times throughout the day. One moment she’d be standing at her bedroom window, watching the preparations, and the next moment she’d be staring without seeing - unfocused, flushed, and out of breath, gripping the windowsill too tightly, forehead pressed against the glass, trying to find her release. Elain felt herself more animal than human in these moments and wondered if this place was changing her in ways she hadn’t anticipated. Or had these strong desires merely been hiding in shadows on the other side of The Wall, waiting for her? Waiting for this place. Here, she was exposed. Unmasked.

* * *

 

“Is there anything you might need before I leave, Elain? You will mostly be alone tonight, so let me know now.”

“No, thank you, Alis. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

Alis left her room and Elain listened to her retreating footsteps.

The house was eerily silent. She crawled into bed and tried to distract herself with one of the botany books Lucien had gotten for her. After staring blankly at the same page for a good five minutes, she tossed the book on the bedside table, swung her feet firmly onto the floor, and considered the armoire in the corner. What dress would be stylish enough for a party, yet not likely to catch on fire?

* * *

 

Elain could  _ feel _ the drums before she saw them, shaking her ribs and dictating her heartbeat. Bonfires burned as tall as houses, lighting the faces of the revelers with a flickering madness. The strange tang of magic scented the night. There was something in the air, some feverish, animal frenzy to the celebration, and all the words of warning from Lucien felt suddenly both exciting and terrifying.

She had been standing at the edges of the crowd, trying to remain inconspicuous, when a shadow fell on her and she turned to find a tall fae male, swaying slightly and staring at her like she might be his next meal.

“Human female?” He breathed deeply and stumbled forward.  “I’ve not had one before. I wonder if you’ll taste different.”

Elain’s heartbeat thundered in her ears and her eyes darted frantically to find an escape. They landed on a set of mismatched eyes, just across the fire, that were similarly wide with fright. Lucien stood quickly and, without his lips moving, she heard him say inside her head, “Don't move. I’m coming.”

Just as the fae male grabbed her arm, Lucien appeared. With a strength she did not expect, Lucien lifted the other male entirely off the ground and dropped him in a crumpled heap a few feet away. She did not hear what Lucien said to him, but saw the fae male lower his head in submission. Then Lucien turned to Elain, walked swiftly to her, and grabbed her arm - not unlike the male he’d just accosted. Urgently, he began pulling her away.

“You are going back,  _ now _ . And you are not leaving that house.”

“I know. I just wanted to see for a moment.” He was walking so quickly she found herself tripping in her haste to keep up with him. She was certain if she fell that he’d just drag her by the arm the rest of the way.

“Lucien, stop!”

He pulled her aside, under the darkness of a tree.

“I’ll go back. You don’t need to drag me like I’m some criminal.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. But we need to go quickly. If he tells others, I may not be able to stop them all.”

“I can run if I take off these shoes.”

Lucien wanted very much to just sling Elain over his shoulder and take off, but he knew she would hate him for the violation.

“Do it. We’ll run together.”

He held out his hand and when she grabbed it, they began running. She was no match for his speed, but he checked himself to keep near her, turning backward often to make sure they were not followed. Elain hitched her dress up to allow her legs greater range of motion, and she ran with him, longer than she’d run since she was a child. Perhaps it was the adrenalin from the fright, but she found herself running faster than she would have thought possible, like a wind was pushing her along. In this moment, Lucien’s red hair whipping wildly in front of her, she felt more alive than she had in years.  

Her side ached fiercely by the time they got back to the house, and they both smelled of sweat and the grass they’d kicked up with their feet.

Lucien walked with her up the staircase to the hall where her room was. The house was silent save her still-shaky breathing.

When Elain was finally able to stand upright without pain, she asked, “Are you going back?”

“I should. I’m expected.”

He turned to go, stepping onto the staircase. Elain found herself moving with him, found her hand reaching out and grabbing his fingers, found herself pulling him back to her with all her strength. Suddenly, her back was pressed against the wall. His body closed in on her, and he pinned her hands up against the wood-paneled wall, warm calloused hands pressing against her smoother palms. Lucien leaned forward and pressed his lips against her ear, breathing her in, and she linked her fingers with his. She had not had any wine at the celebration, but she felt drunker than she’d ever been in her life, felt like he was melting her body everywhere he touched. She tilted her head to the side as he leaned into her, his teeth grazing her neck. Lucien’s body now molded to hers. Both of them vibrating with need, she uttered one word.

“Please.”

One click. A sustained whir.

Faster than she could process, Lucien leapt back from her and growled, his breathing coming fast and erratic. Her body went from thrumming with desire to shaking in abject fear in a split second, and before she could react further, his hands had shoved her shoulders painfully against the wall. He brought his face close, snarling. The cold smoothness of his mask pressed against her cheek.

“How could you  _ think _ that I would want  _ you _ ?!”

Lucien shoved away and stumbled backward, shoulders heaving. He glared at the ground before slowly lifting his head to look into her face. He said with a quiet severity, “I do not want you, Elain. I  _ cannot _ .”

He turned and raced down the stairs, not once looking back. His footsteps echoed loudly through the manor. The force of the slamming door shook the chandelier. And in the five seconds it took him to leave, Elain sunk slowly to the floor, shaking with shock and fear and humiliation that quickly evolved into an anger that came from a dark place within her. Tears cascaded down her cheeks as she pushed herself up and grabbed a vase from the nearest table, only to launch it against the wall, screaming as it shattered. She was coming undone.

Not wanting any witnesses to her undoing, Elain stalked off. A single word pounded in her head as she walked to her room,“ _ why _ .” And the more she asked it of herself, the more she realized she did not believe him. There were so many secrets, so many plans and discussions that she was not privy to, and this lie, this betrayal felt somehow like an extension of the mystery. As much as she wanted to hold on to her anger, to let it leave its mark on her, she couldn’t stop her mind from puzzling out this mystery.

Elain mulled over every moment she’d shared with Lucien up to this night. Every conversation, every teasing barb, every instance had felt genuine. He was never disingenuous. Until now.  _ I cannot _ , he’d said.  _ Why, Lucien? Why not?  _ She could feel him when he said that, like she was in his head with him. He was drowning in sorrow.

As she closed her bedroom door behind her and slid the bolt to lock it, she thought of that moment at the pond with Tamlin. And how, in that moment, she wanted him. It was a simple, sensual want. An extension of her very humanity to desire contact, connection, love. But the want she felt  _ tonight _ , the want she had felt in her dream of Lucien, was shaped by something powerful and primal, an overflowing want - unstoppable as an erupting volcano.

She peeled off her dress and collapsed into bed, pulling the blankets up tight against her chin. Perhaps it really was this place. She was losing all sense of control and projecting her wild desires on every male she encountered, like some beast in heat.  _ Remember who you are, Elain. Do not lose yourself. _

_ But what if this is who I am? _

She sighed and rolled to her side. There would be no answers tonight.

Her body was physically exhausted from the run, and the adrenaline from the encounter with Lucien had drained her mentally.  So, she slept.

And she dreamed.

She was in the gardening shed, searching for something. She didn’t know what. She turned over pots, dumping soil everywhere. Dug through crates of tools, packages of seeds, sacks of fertilizer, tossing them all aside. She’d upended everything in that shed until only a single pot was left: A small rose cutting, ready to be replanted. The cracked pot rested alone in a dark corner. She lifted it, then wriggled her fingers into the dirt, digging deeper and deeper until the soil reached her elbows and she finally felt something cool and hard. She grasped it and pulled, clods of soil dropping away to reveal her find. His mask. The fox.

In that moment, a persistent scratching sounded from the other side of the shed door, louder and more insistent with each passing second. Heavy, frantic breathing accompanied the scratching, and Elain began to shake.  Just as she thought the door would break, she dropped the mask and it shattered.

Elain lunged to grab the pieces and woke to find herself frantically pulling the blankets around her, scooping them into her lap. Until she realized the sounds had not ceased when she woke. The breathing. The scratching.

Outside her door.

She did not need to open the door, or even approach it, to know who it was.

Sliding her legs out from beneath the sheets, she stepped onto the cold tiled floor. Slowly, carefully, Elain placed one foot in front of the other. She stopped mere inches from the door, her feet directly over the shadows of the beast’s feet on the other side. He could destroy her without trying, without even realizing it, if she opened that door. And a wild part of her, the part that was still shaking from the fight with Lucien, begged her to reach for the lock.

**End Chapter 3**


	4. Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elain has been living in The Spring Court after the killing of Andras. Fire Night is coming to an end. Earlier she had an intense moment with Lucien that ended badly and Tamlin appeared at her door in beast form. She must now deal with her loneliness and the question of if she will ever leave.

Lucien rubbed his palms on his pants, a nervous tic Nesta had noticed during their conversations these last few weeks.

 

“My whole life I have struggled to _know_ myself. Maybe it was growing up where I did, knowing my own family despised me, that kept me from feeling I could ever be who I wanted to be, care openly about the things that I held secretly inside me. Everything I ever showed to the world was always crushed.”

 

Nesta’s chin rested on her fist as she raised her eyes to Lucien. “Your _whole_ family? What about your mother?”

 

He pursed his lips together. “No, you’re right. She didn’t despise me. But if you imagine I didn’t feel utterly betrayed by her when I found out about my real father, you would be a fool. Lives were…”

 

He stopped speaking, his throat bobbing with swallowed emotions. Nesta set down her pencil, thinking this may be the end of their visit. But he cleared his throat and began again. “Lives were destroyed because of...her husband. And it took me a very long time to stop blaming _her_ , too. Knowing how different my life might have been if she’d left him. Can you imagine, how different would I be if I’d grown up in the Day Court?”

 

Nesta nodded slowly, contemplating his words, before she responded. “I think these difficult experiences...transform us. In living through trauma, like you did, I think we’re forged into something else - same material, different shape. When we’re tested, it’s like throwing a sword into the smelter. The metal is still there, but it comes out looking different and hardens with a new purpose. I’m not saying…” She paused to gather her thoughts and Lucien leaned back on the couch, tilting his head to the ceiling. “I’m not trying to diminish anything you’ve gone through. I would never want to do that. But forgiveness is borne from knowledge. Feyre eventually could forgive me as she came to understand what was behind my cruelty, and as she came to know herself better. Not excuse it but understand it. When you understood your mother, how living with a tyrant had reshaped her - as you, yourself had in some ways been reshaped by living with Tamlin - is that how you came to forgive her?”

 

Lucien nodded. “It’s strange to look back on my time with Tamlin. He offered a refuge to me -  safety, companionship. And I desperately needed it. But his own trauma, growing up the way he did, his family dying as they did - it reshaped him, as you say...I think he was such a powerful presence, and I was so broken, that he ended up reshaping me, too. I let him have control over who I was. I think Elain showed me that, showed me just how much I’d lost my own sense of self, just by being so completely...herself.”

 

Nesta took a drink of her tea which had cooled, the bits of tea leaves settled on the bottom.

 

“Elain _is_ completely herself. That’s a good way to put it, Lucien. But the Elain you knew then was not the Elain that I’d known. She was reshaped there. I think every time we are reforged, we leave some parts of us behind in the fire. We leave old hurt, old anger, old misunderstanding. If we try to hold on to that, it weakens our structure. Every reforging is a chance to purify, to know ourselves more completely. And with the knowing comes forgiveness of ourselves, of all the might-have-beens. I was literally reformed in the Cauldron, and it took me a long time to know myself again. It was only when I began to know my new self that I could forgive who I’d been.”

 

“You’re very wise, you know, Nesta. You should write a book.” He got the eye roll he was hoping for and gave a cheeky grin in return.

 

**Fire Night**

 

Elain did not need to open the door, or even approach it, to know who it was.

Sliding her legs out from beneath the sheets, she stepped onto the cold, tiled floor. Slowly, carefully, Elain placed one foot in front of the other. She stopped mere inches from the door, her feet directly over the shadows of the beast’s feet on the other side. He could destroy her without trying, without even realizing it, if she opened that door. And a wild part of her, the part that was still shaking from the fight with Lucien, begged her to reach for the lock.

 

Elain’s legs trembled, but she stayed, waiting. Minutes passed, and the shadows shifted, the scratching stopped, and she heard a light thud against the wood. She didn’t move or make a sound, but waited until the shadows disappeared, sliding away.

 

The room suddenly felt enormous, too big for one person. _This entire place is too big._ She crawled back under the blankets and wished to feel her sisters pressed in on either side of her again, their solid presence a comfort in the dark of the night. She had tried not to think about them too much since she’d arrived in Prythian, but being alone now, knowing she had no one to go to in this moment, her heart ached. _Were they looking for her, looking for a way through the wall? If they found a way through, would one of the wicked creatures out there cut them down before they could get to her? Would Feyre stand a chance with just her bow and knife?_

 

 

The following days came and went, with Lucien maintaining a polite distance. He was not cruel, not the way he’d been that night, but there was a wall between them now. He did not invite her on rides. She read in her room to avoid running into him in the library.

 

She tried not to dwell on his reasons for rejecting her, or why he’d felt the need to wound her in doing so. He had a host of secrets himself - that much she knew. Whatever trauma from his past caused him to lash out was obviously not something he wished her to know about. So she let him be, but felt acutely the loss of yet another voice in this already empty place.

 

Tamlin, on the other hand, became increasingly cordial - warm even. She never mentioned his presence at her door on Fire Night. The gouges in the wood were magically gone in y the morning. Elain had begun to feel the weight of being alone. She’d never been away from her sisters, had always had someone to turn to. Here, she felt adrift and she reached out to him, the only tether thrown her way.

 

Tamlin took her on long walks, helped her pick wildflowers, regaled her with his adventures as a soldier. It was light and insubstantial, but a welcome distraction from her increasingly heavier thoughts Fire Night had been a wake-up call to her. She did not belong in this place. She had hoped to make the best of it - find a way to carve out a space here for herself - but as time wore on, she began to realize that she would never fit in, never have a purpose amongst the fae.

 

Her life here was feeling more and more like an inescapable labyrinth; whenever she felt herself making progress, another dead end appeared.

 

She was contemplating this, yet again, amidst the roses. Elain found herself drawn to the rose gardens often lately, their blooms adding dazzling color to the peaceful gardens. She was sitting on a stone bench, under a trellis woven from white and red roses, when Tamlin appeared behind her in that silent way of his.

 

“My father planted these roses for my mother, as a gift when they were mated.”

 

Elain flinched at the unexpected sound, then stood and turned to face him. _Does he delight in sneaking up on me?_

 

“Your parents were mated? How is it different than falling in love, or marrying?”

 

He sat on the bench and gestured for her to join him. “High fae mostly marry, but if you have a mate, marriage becomes insignificant in comparison.  It’s said to be very powerful, where two are perfectly matched, equals, connected mind, body, and soul. My parents would simply look at each other and I could just see they were communicating in their own way. Many do not ever meet their mate, however.”

 

“That must have been so beautiful, to see two people so completely connected.”

 

“Being mates does not confer goodness. My father was still...cruel. He kept human slaves, did many horrible things, really. And my mother might not have agreed, but she looked past it. The mating bond can be unfortunate in that respect.”

 

He noted her worried look and reassured her, “I’m not like him, Elain. I could never be that way. The fae and the humans do have a long, bloody history, but I want nothing more than to have peace.”

 

She nodded and fidgeted with her dress.

 

“Are you okay? You’ve been so quiet lately.”

 

“I’m worried about my family, about how they are faring. I feel horrible being here amongst these riches knowing they are going without.”

 

“Elain, your family...you should know they are safe. They are cared for. When I took you, I glamoured them so they wouldn’t remember what happened. I left them with means to a fortune. You need not worry about them.”

 

“What?” She stared at him in disbelief. “Truly? They are safe?” Hope sprouted in her chest, blossoming into a soft light behind her eyes. He smiled and nodded, pleased to have given her this hope. But she looked back at him with her brows furrowed.

 

“If they don’t remember...does that mean they don’t know where I am?”

 

“They believe you are caring for a sick aunt. They have no reason to be worried about you.”

 

Part of her felt so grateful and relieved to know they were no longer stuck in that cottage -  hungry, freezing, despondent. But another part of her rose up in indignation. They weren’t looking for her. They weren’t thinking much of her at all, most likely. She was truly lost here. Lost to them.

 

Tamlin reached for her hand with a look of pure adoration, and her heart thundered in her chest. He couldn’t comprehend what his good intentions had done to her. What heartbreak he had caused. He had knocked a brick out from the foundation of her hope. And he didn’t even know it.

 

The tears began to fall as she lost her struggle to contain them. Tamlin, thinking she was overcome with joy, smiled at her and held her face in his hands, and gently kissed her wet cheeks.   

 

He pulled away and she sniffled, straightening her back. “I’m a mess. I’m sorry.” She stood and straightened her dress, wiping at her eyes. “Thank you. Thank you for taking care of them. Please excuse me.”

 

Elain walked away from him, not turning to see what look might be on his face, or if he had any notion of the sadness she was drowning in.

 

 

“Nesta, we are definitely no longer on the trail. Are you sure you know where you’re going? I know these woods a great deal better than you, and I’ve never seen a waterfall around here.”

 

They’d been walking for an hour in the woods, about an hour longer than she’d ever hiked with Nesta before. Nesta stopped suddenly, Feyre nearly running into her back. Nesta turned to face her and placed her hands on Feyre’s shoulders, gripping them tightly, and looked her squarely in the eyes.

 

“We’re not going to a waterfall, Feyre. I needed to get you away from that house, from...everything. I want to talk to you. I want you to try to remember some things for me, okay?”

 

“Nesta, you’re acting like I have memorized a secret map to magical hidden treasure or something. I’m a little worried about you, if I’m honest. The fact that you wanted to go into the woods at all is...unexpected.”

 

“Tell me what you remember of the day Elain was taken.”

 

Feyre’s face was knotted in confusion by this seemingly random question. “Taken? You mean when she left to help our aunt?”

 

Nesta let out a frustrated sigh. “Yes, that day. How did you feel that day? Were you happy?”

 

“I don’t know. I suppose. Not to have her go, but just in general, I was probably fine. Where are you going with this?”

 

Nesta reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a broken piece of wood with faded painted flowers on it.

 

Feyre groaned. “Not the bit of table again. Nesta, I have no idea why that old table broke, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s because it was old.”

 

“Just do something for me. Humor me. Hold it in your hand. And _really_ look at it. Tell me what could make those kinds of marks in wood. Pretend it’s not ours. Just some piece of wood.

 

Feyre rolled her eyes and took the piece of wood. She turned it over slowly and ran her fingers over the gouges. “Well, it does kind of look like scratch marks, I guess.”

 

“What could make those kind of scratch marks, that deep?”

 

“Some kind of animal. Something big.”

 

“What kind of animal do you know of that’s that big? Around here?”

 

Nesta watched her sister’s face, how it transformed from merely curious to shock and confusion in the moment Feyre remembered, her eyes widening and her breath coming in short gasps.

 

“You remember it, Feyre. The beast.” Nesta searched Feyre’s eyes and struggled to keep her own breathing under control despite the exhilaration born from finally breaking through.

 

Feyre’s eyes watered with the sudden burst of emotion. She gave a quick nod of her head, even though Nesta hadn’t been asking. Her voice shook with the flood of memories. “I couldn’t move. It was so strong, and I couldn’t move to stop it. Elain…”

 

“She’s in Prythian. The beast took her and we were not to attempt to get her back.” Nesta’s voice turned to steel. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that be the last time I see our sister. I will cut that beast’s head off when we find it.”

 

“I’ll hold it down while you do it.”

 

 

Elain was losing track of time, forgetting what day it was, forgetting meals. She felt herself floating through life here without direction. It was like a light was going out inside her. The one person who had listened to her, who had understood her, was now detached and distant. Tamlin spent time with her, and seemed to be genuinely fond of her, but he never made an effort to _know_ her. He never asked her about her life in the human realm, about anything that may have been of interest to her besides gardening. He seemed content with whatever image he’d drawn of her. And so, with no one to hold the mirror, she began to forget herself.

 

Most evenings she and Tamlin met in a sitting room after dinner and talked for an hour or so before he was inevitably pulled away by Lucien, who seemed to always need to consult about something or other.

 

Tamlin followed her up the staircase one evening, unwilling to break the conversation even as she neared her bedroom, when suddenly the front doors crashed open. Two sentries burst through with a large fae male draped in their arms. He was covered in blood and dripping a steady trail of it. Tamlin had flown down the stairs and swept away the clutter from a large table before Elain had a chance to even process what was happening.

 

Elain followed him down, unsure how to help, but unable to just walk away from such a scene. “What happened to him?”

 

Tamlin did not answer her. The sounds of the fae’s gasping breath and moans were the only sounds filling the hall.

 

Lucien had come rushing in behind the sentries and pushed Elain back from the table, so he could set more candles on it. Tamlin nodded to him and they turned the fae over onto his stomach. There were two large wounds on his upper back,blood pulsing out with each beat of his heart,  continuing to spill onto the floor. A wave of nausea hit her, and she had to look away and take some deep breaths to compose herself. Steadying her racing heart, Elain ran off to the small supply closet she’d seen on her first tour of the house. She grabbed as many towels as she could hold. Handing the towels to Tamlin, she looked around and realized Lucien had disappeared.

 

“Where’s Lucien?”

 

Tamlin nodded behind him to where Lucien was kneeling over a puddle of vomit.

 

The fae on the table groaned and arched away in pain as Tamlin applied pressure to his wounds. Elain knelt to look into his face. His eyes darted frantically, disoriented, and his face contorted in pain.

 

“They took my wings. They took my wings.” He moaned, over and over. Elain took his face in her hands and steadied him, drawing his focus to her.

 

“Shhh. I know. I know.” She looked up at Tamlin, whose eyes held no promise of hope. He held the towels against the wounds, but the blood didn’t stop pooling around their feet. She looked back at the fae and spoke softly. “You’ll have your wings again soon. Just rest now. Just sleep.” And, after a few more labored breaths, his eyes closed, and the ragged breaths ceased.

 

Elain stood. She leaned against the table and, holding her hand over her mouth, began to shake.  In his moment of death, she had felt his life leave him. The pulsing warmth of his skin seemed to fade, the pressure of his face slackened against her hands.

 

She’d never helped Feyre with the animals she brought home, had hated the thought of skinning and butchering them. She’d _always_ hidden from death, imagining she could keep it from darkening her world. Here, watching the blood ooze across the marble floor, she looked at the creatures around her -  so different and so strong and so _terrifying_ \- and could see their blood flowing beneath their skin. They all suddenly seemed so brightly alive, and so hopelessly vulnerable.

 

Tamlin grimaced as he lifted the fae from the table. Before turning away, he said to her, “Go to bed, Elain. Thank you for...being with him at the end. But there’s no more to be done tonight.”

 

The pool of blood around Elain’s feet had become sticky. She slipped out of her shoes and carefully stepped away, unable to stomach the thought of trying to wash them. She couldn’t go to bed now, not after that. So, she walked numbly down the long hall to the library, hoping that perhaps reading would keep her from dwelling on it. Instead she found Lucien inside, standing at the tall windows in the dark, peering out into the blackness. He didn’t turn to acknowledge her.

 

“Lucien. Are you feeling...better?” Every word that left her mouth felt embarrassingly inadequate. _Of course, he’s not feeling better._

 

“Just lovely.”

 

She stopped next to him and looked out at the clouds passing over the moon. “Why would anyone do that?”

 

Lucien turned to her and she stepped closer. There were no candles lighting the room, only moonlight, glinting off his eye. He just stared at her for a moment before speaking.

 

“I loved someone, years ago. But she was low-born. Not worthy of a High Lord’s son, according to my father. And when I refused to give her up, my father had her executed. And my brothers held me and forced me to watch.” Tears welled in Elain’s eyes and her chest constricted at the thought of such cruelty. _How horrifying that must have been for him_. The casual way in which he told her belied the anguish she could feel in him.

 

“I do not have an answer for you, Elain. I do not know what it is that made my father delight in such cruelty, or why my brothers were so eager to inflict pain, or why this fae had his wings ripped from his body tonight. The world is full of wretched beings.”

 

Elain struggled to find her voice.  “I’m so sorry, Lucien.” It came out as a whisper.

 

“Pity will not restore her.”

 

He turned away from her and said no more. A dismissal.

 

Elain returned to her room, feeling like she’d been battered by waves in a stormy sea and , tossed against the unforgiving rocks. She closed her eyes and clung to the one last hope she barely had: that her sisters might find her.


	5. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our favorite High Lord makes an appearance and the dangerous reality of their situation requires a hard decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to @cohen-theeleven on Tumblr for being my amazing editor and wordsmith.

* * *

 

Nesta drew the curtains to the study closed.  The birch tree just outside the window did little to block the late afternoon sun that blinded her every time she sat back in her chair. She could also sense Lucien was distracted by the lateness of the day.  Every few minutes he’d been peering out the window to see if his family was coming up the hill to the townhouse.

 

“We haven’t really talked about the time when you were first separated. I know a lot happened then, for you. What was your state of mind at that time?”

 

Lucien settled back into the couch. “Before we moved back in with our old pal, Amarantha, or after? Because I have to say, my state of mind after was not great. Lots of wishing for a swift death. Actually, I’m a little surprised you haven’t asked me about my first impressions of _you_. Frothing at the mouth, your legs kicking helplessly in the air. It’s an image I’ll not soon forget.”

 

Nesta settled an icy stare on him, just barely concealing her mirth. “I _wish_ I could convey to you just how much I hated you.”

 

“Oh, _I_ wish you could, too.”

 

* * *

 

Feyre used to tell spooky stories about dark wraiths who floated through walls, eating up light in their path. She said if a person was in their path, they’d pass through them and eat their soul. The male who sauntered into the dining hall was no wraith, but he moved within a darkness that terrified Elain far more than any story Feyre had ever concocted.

 

Lucien had shoved her behind him quicker than she could protest and created a glamour to hide her from the male.  Rhysand was the name Tamlin sneered when he entered. She could feel Lucien tense and press closer against her, breathing heavily.

 

Elain’s mind felt murky as they talked, unable to process the words being spoken. She caught, only snippets of their conversation, but it was enough to keep her in a shocked stillness. He was a High Lord. From the Night Court. She remembered it from the map - the massive, mountainous, and uncharted northern part of the continent. He was here with a message from someone named Amarantha. She’d heard Lucien and Tamlin speak of a “she”, using tones that conveyed nothing but hate. It had to be her, Amarantha. But who she really was, and what kind of threat she posed, was still a mystery.

 

Elain shook herself out of her confused thoughts just in time to hear Rhysand say “She’s preparing for you.” _What does that mean? Is she coming here? Is Tamlin going to meet with her?_

 

She was jolted from her musings when Rhysand whirled to face Lucien. She could feel his heart begin to race. In a second, the glamour was wiped away, and she was exposed.

 

“Who is _she_?” The stranger spoke with a cold wrath that sent shivers down her spine.

 

Lucien vibrated with rage, refusing to move away from her. “She’s my betrothed. Do not touch her.”

 

He pulled out his sword and held it between Elain and Rhysand, heat shimmering around him.

 

Rhysand merely pushed Lucien to the side like he was a bothersome child, and she was suddenly face-to-face with the fearsome fae. Elain felt a scrape against her mind - as if he had bored a hole into her skull and was peering inside. And she was utterly helpless to stop it.

 

“Oh, little Lucien, I knew your claim about being betrothed was a lie, but I think she might actually be amenable to that idea, considering the absolutely filthy things she’s imaged doing with you.”

 

Elain risked a glance at Lucien. She expected his face to be full of rage, but what she saw was a look of absolute sorrow, his chin trembling, and as he held her stare she heard him in her head. _Forgive me, Elain. Please. Forgive me._

 

“Oh stop, Lucien. Bed her properly and I’m sure she’ll forget all about your transgressions.” Lucien said nothing.

 

Elain looked then to Tamlin, who was staring at the floor, the muscles in his jaw clenching.

 

“Amarantha will enjoy breaking her, I think.”

 

Lucien leapt toward Rhysand, only to stop abruptly. It looked like he was being held back by an invisible hand. “Please. Let her go. Don’t tell Amarantha. She is innocent.”

 

Elain was overcome with a sudden terror and felt faint. _Why would this Amarantha want anything to do with me?_

 

Lucien fell to his knees at Rhysand’s feet and continued to plead. Rhysand gave a wicked smirk and pointed to Tamlin to indicate he needed to join Lucien at his feet. To her shock,Tamlin did.  Rhysand’s smirk widened into a devilish grin. He turned to Elain and cocked his head.

 

“Tell me your name.”

 

Elain looked into his beautiful and cold face and tried to clear her head. She could not risk her sisters by telling him anything that could lead him to them. She grasped the first name she could think of. A friend of theirs from the village. “Clare Beddor.”

 

She heard Lucien’s eye click.

 

“Well, this has been _entertaining_. I look forward to seeing you Under the Mountain. It was nice to meet you, Clare.”

 

And he left, sauntering away as if he’d just dropped by for a friendly chat.

 

Elain was still frozen in fear. She was quite sure she now knew what Under the Mountain was. Amarantha’s Court. She slid to the ground, her strength completely sapped by the force of the terror flowing through her. Tamlin rose, breath huffing with a barely contained fury. Lucien stood quickly and stalked out of the room.

 

* * *

 

 

Feyre gasped when she felt it, the opening in the wall. “Nesta, this is it! We’ve found it!”

 

“Are you sure? I was starting to think we were mad.”

 

Feyre began to walk through and stopped. “I don’t know what we’re going to find, Nesta.” The unspoken message being, _this could be our final moments alive_.

 

“We can do this, Feyre. We have to. We’re going to get her back.”

 

Feyre had never found her relationship with Nesta to be easy, but in the weeks since she’d broken through the glamour and they planned this trek, the two of them had found a respect within their shared purpose, and trust they desperately needed. She doubted it would last once all of this was over, but for now, she was grateful. Feyre considered Nesta in this moment - her unwavering commitment to helping their sister, to do whatever it took, to face her fears and stare them down. She was stronger than Feyre had given her credit for. If only she’d been able to summon that strength in the years that they wasted away.

 

Feyre squared her shoulders and nodded to her sister. “Then let’s do it.”

 

They continued due north, after having walked east along the wall for two days. The woods were quiet and the air smelled different - the scents of the life around them had been amplified. They went in silence, afraid to draw attention from whatever strange creatures lurked here. The woods began to thin after a few hours. Feyre whispered that she thought they must be almost through them.

 

“What are _you_ doing here?” Nesta and Feyre both jumped at the sound of a man’s voice, far closer than seemed possible. He looked utterly out of place on the edge of the woods, tall and pale and beautiful, his fine dark clothes certainly not meant for hikes through the forest.

 

Feyre reached back to touch Nesta in reassurance, “Who are you? We have no quarrel with you.”

 

He grinned and slipped his hands into his pockets. “Would you quarrel if I asked nicely? No? You look a bit lost. Are you looking for my dear friend, Tamlin? His humble abode is but five minutes’ walk from here.” He looked over his shoulder to indicate the direction.  “I’ve just come from there myself. I thought I’d go for a little stroll, and I heard you two making a horrible racket out here.”

 

Feyre straightened and grasped Nesta’s hand. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way.” Nesta squeezed her hand to ask if she was insane and Feyre squeezed back in answer - yes, she possibly was, but what other options were there?

 

They strode past the mysterious stranger, and they didn’t look back.

 

* * *

 

 

Elain avoided Tamlin and Lucien the rest of the day, unable to brave even speaking of what had transpired. As much as she wanted answers - and she certainly deserved them - she needed to get her thoughts straight first. Needed to calm down and ground herself.

 

She walked the grounds, attempting to clear her mind of the fear and think clearly. She needed to consider what she could possibly _do_ , how she could convince them to let her go back to the human realm. That was the only logical solution. There had to be a loophole, a way to get around her requirement to stay in Prythian. It was certain death if she stayed. If she _had_ to die here, she’d rather it not be at the hands of some cruel, torturous ruler under a mountain.  She would approach Tamlin tonight and beg if need be. It was all she could think to do.

 

Her feet were starting to ache, and the sun had begun to drop below the horizon, so she began to walk back to the house. As the dirt path turned to stone, she could have sworn she heard Nesta’s voice yelling her name. Elain closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to shake away the memory. Except, she heard it again, only louder. Closer. She opened her eyes and looked in the direction of the voice. A cry escaped her mouth at the sight of her sisters running toward her with Lucien shortly behind them.

 

Their arms crushed her, and she breathed them in, gasping like she’d been suffocating, and they were air. Lucien stood back and watched them for a moment, swaying together in a tangle of arms and hair and tears.

 

“I need to speak to Tamlin. Come inside when you’re ready.”

 

* * *

 

 

Nesta’s hatred of fae ran deep, and she would not deign to offer them civil discourse. In fact, the very first thing she did when the sentries intercepted her and Feyre on the edge of the woods was to grab for Feyre’s knife and swing it wildly in hopes of taking one out. The sentries knocked the knife out of her hands with ease and restrained her, while Feyre tried to explain who they were. Nesta never stopped resisting, never stopped kicking, even as the sentry lifted her off the ground. Thankfully, the sentries had been informed that Elain had sisters and there was always the slim chance they’d show up. If the sentries hadn’t known, then Feyre and Nesta would have been dead before ever speaking a word. Lucien had arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, looking agitated and disheveled. His eye whirred wildly when he saw them, recognizing their resemblance to Elain instantly. Nesta spewed profanities at him on sight. He simply waited until she had run out of breath, then calmly asked, “Would you like to see your sister?”

 

Now, sitting with Tamlin in the study, Lucien tried to persuade him to let Elain go back home with her sisters.

 

“We can’t keep her here. You know Amarantha will take her.”

 

Tamlin didn’t react. Didn’t speak or indicate he’d even heard Lucien.

 

“Tamlin, why are you even hesitating here? We don’t have ti-”

 

Tamlin cut him off. “Because I love her. I’m not ready to let her go. Perhaps if she…”

 

“If she what?!” Lucien began pacing, a panic rising in his chest. He asked softly, “Do you think she loves you?”

 

“No. I don’t know. Look, the fact is we don’t know exactly when Amarantha will come for us. We can hide Elain, keep her protected somewhere We have some time.”

 

Lucien breathed deeply to calm himself. He knew Tamlin would not listen if he thought Lucien’s reasoning was borne purely from emotion.

 

“We _can’t_ protect her, Tamlin. You know that, right? Amarantha has armies. We only have a fraction of our own power. She _will_ have you. And now that she knows of Elain - that is exactly the sort of situation she would delight in... having someone to torture, to get you to bend to her will. If you do love Elain, you _cannot_ consider keeping her here. You have to send her back with her sisters. Our best hope now is that Amarantha doesn’t want to expend the effort to track her down there. She gave a false name to Rhysand, and that may be the one thing to save her.”

 

Tamlin finally looked at him and nodded. “Fine. We’ll send her home.”

 

* * *

 

 

Elain had come to Prythian with almost nothing and would leave with almost nothing. But she could not say that she was returning as the Elain her sisters knew. That young woman who had done little to face the cold realities of her situation, who had turned inward to preserve herself, was no more. She had been turned inside out here, exposed to the elements, and every piece of her that wasn’t solidly affixed to her being had floated away. In some ways, this place stripped her to her essence. She still loved deeply and easily, still kept hope in her heart, still looked-for beauty in every instance. But those elements of her had been baked and hardened, stripped of uncertainties and indecision. She had survived here, found a strength here that would reshape her life.

 

She crossed the floor to stand at her bedroom window, and saw the carriage was being loaded up. Lucien pushed a small box into the back of the carriage, then walked off down a path. Feyre was speaking with Tamlin, her arms crossed over her chest warily. She had reluctantly accepted Elain’s word that they would not be harmed here. Nesta was standing behind the carriage, unwilling to look at or speak to any of the fae since arriving.

 

Elain watched Lucien turn down a path that led away from the house, and sensed he was going off to hide, not wanting to deal with goodbyes. But she had no intention of leaving without one, so she quickly pulled on her shoes and ran out through the kitchen to catch him.

 

It took a few minutes of wandering, but she eventually saw him in the distance just as he was entering a gardening shed. She hurried toward it. The door creaked as she inched it open, peeking her head in. Lucien looked up in surprise.

 

“Did you think I would leave without saying ‘goodbye’?”

 

Elain shut the door gently behind her. Lucien set down the pot he’d been holding. Her mouth hung slightly agape as she took in what it was. A rose cutting. Just as in her dream. In that moment, she felt her body flush. Her heart began to beat so loudly it was all she could hear. The walls of the shed began to close in and everything in her sight dissolved except for him. His lips curved up into a beautiful smile.

 

Elain smiled back and found herself enveloped in a glowing warmth. She felt nothing of the tension, the anger, the confusion that had been tainting them before.  There was only the two of them, strung together with something fine and delicate. She heard his eye clicking, shifting, taking in every inch of her - he was memorizing the shape of her.

 

“I will miss you, Elain.”

 

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing herself not to let the tears fall as they flooded her eyes. Lucien closed the space between them, and she fell into his open arms and buried her face into his neck. He pulled her tightly against him and felt her body mold to his and in this moment, he felt complete.

 

Elain tilted her head up so her lips were a hair’s breadth from his ear and spoke softly. “When did you know I was your mate?”

 

Lucien ceased breathing. He could have sworn his heart stopped. A small cry escaped his throat and he pulled her tighter against him. Tears streaked down his cheeks and onto her dress as he released a shaky laugh.

 

“Fire Night. When you pulled me to you. I knew.”

 

She whimpered in sympathy, imagining what horrible thing must have warred inside him, to make him find the strength to push away from her. She did not understand why it happened, why he felt he had to do that. But she never doubted, after the initial shock wore off, that it killed him to do so.

 

“When did _you_ know?”

 

She pulled back to look at his face and reached up to wipe away the wetness at the edges of his mask. “When did _I_ know? About a minute ago.”

 

Lucien’s chest vibrated in a silent laugh, full of promise and sorrow and joy. Elain’s fingers inched backward until they were tangled in his hair at the nape of his neck. She pulled him down until their lips met in a tentative kiss. They held it, breathing each other in, pressing into one another in the hopes they could make the world around them disappear. When they broke apart, both sighed from the loss, and the air rushing in to fill the space between them.

 

Lucien’s hands cupped her face, and he pulled her lips back to his, this time with a breathless urgency. His tongue swept against her lips and she opened for him with a moan, the sound of it sending a shiver through him. She gathered his hair into her fist and pulled him closer against her, as if she were trying to devour him. In truth, some part of her wanted to punish him - to bite his lips until they bled, to take a piece of his flesh as punishment for every wicked barb, for the horrible words he spewed on Fire Night, for not being able to stop Amarantha. She wanted to bite his mask until it cracked apart and then taste every inch of the face that had been hidden from her. To kiss the scar running over his eye and watch it disappear in her wake.

 

When they pulled apart, their panting breaths filled the shed.  The sound cut through the magic shroud that had draped over them when their lips first met.

 

Lucien opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

 

“Lucien.” She took a steadying breath. “What’s going to happen when I leave? What is Amarantha going to do to you?”

 

He offered a reassuring smile, but she could feel his fear.

 

“We’ll be fine. We’ve been around hundreds of years. This is nothing we haven’t dealt with before. My only concern is that you and your sisters get home safely. And that you find happiness.”

 

Elain’s face crumbled and the tears finally broke free. Lucien pulled her against his chest.

 

“Don’t cry. This is just the beginning of your story, Elain. You are going to have a beautiful life.”

 

She swallowed the lump in her throat and pulled back, giving him the best smile she could muster.

 

“At the first sign of trouble, you leave with your sisters. Get as far away from the continent as you can. Promise me that?”

 

She nodded weakly.

 

“Goodbye, Elain.”

 

“Goodbye, Lucien.”

 

* * *

 


	6. Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elain is haunted by dreams and worry for Lucien's safety. She and her sisters must make a hard decision about their future.

Lucien massaged his hand, pressing and rubbing his thumb into his palm. He’d been doing it for the last hour, a subconscious exercise as he walked through the memories of his time Under the Mountain. Nesta had asked him how he wanted to handle this part of his story; if it would be easier for him to talk about it in short sessions or if he’d rather get it all out at once. _“I don’t think either of us could stay awake long enough for one session to cover everything, but a couple might do. I’d rather not drag it out. Once I open the door, it will stay open until we’re done.”_

 

“Did something happen to your hand there? Did Am...did _she_ do something to it?”

 

Lucien stretched his hand one last time and set it, very deliberately, on the arm of the chair. His tight grasp strained the skin over his knuckles. “She came for us...her _goons_ came for us four days after the three of you left. They took us through the cave entrance and into the mountain. I don’t know where they took Tamlin, but they took me to a room, just off the throne room, some sort of waiting area maybe. It was small. My brothers were there. She was there. The Attor, the winged creature that carried out her orders, he was there. He took my hand and nailed it to a beam over my head. It happened so quickly I hardly knew what he’d done and nearly fainted from the pain. My brothers started in on me immediately. Mostly blows to my stomach, my legs. And each time I lost my balance, I was sure my hand would rip right off of my arm. I started to hope it would, so I wouldn’t have to hold myself up anymore.”

 

Nesta had not written down a word, but stared at him with deadly stillness, her power vibrating in the air around her.

 

“They left me there for...I don’t know how long it was. My arm was numb, completely covered in blood. I must have finally fainted, because the Attor pulled my hand out of the wood, then pulled out the nail. That woke me. He poured icy water over me for good measure and shut the door. I stayed there for a few hours, I think. I had some power, just a fraction left, to heal my hand, although not enough to fully heal it. I still feel it sometimes, this throbbing in the center where the nail was. Like her wrath is still living inside that space, a pulsing memory of her.”

 

* * *

 

 

Since her return to the mortal realm three days ago, Elain had been busier than she expected - settling into their new family home, getting to know the servants, reacquainting herself with the town. It was such a far cry from their dark, cold hovel they had once shared. It felt like years had passed in the months she’d been gone.

 

Feyre leaned against the armoire in Elain’s room. Dresses were erupting from the armoire and more clothing was strewn haphazardly about the room. Nesta had been purchasing new dresses, cloaks, scarves, and hats for Elain while she was in Prythian. Her unwavering certainty that they would get Elain back had created an abundance of finery needing organizing, which Elain was all too happy to do. This sort of busy work kept her mind from wandering back to the Spring Court quite as often. Still, the worry crept in. _What_ ’s happe _ning there now? Has Amarantha come for Lucien and Tamlin?_

 

Feyre could sense Elain’s distracted mind, knowing there were many things about her time in Prythian that she hadn’t yet shared with her sisters. Feyre attempted to pull her back to the present. “She might have gone a little overboard with the dresses. I can’t really blame her. It was good to have the means to get whatever you wanted again. I think that desire had been building up in her for a long time. We all splurged. You should see my paint collection.”

 

Elain set aside two of the dresses. “Do you think I could give this to the cook’s family? She has a daughter, doesn’t she? These two are quite similar and I don’t think I’d need both.”

 

Feyre shrugged, and cocked her head to the side to examine her sister. “You know, Elain, you look different. I know we’re all healthier now, but you look...older.”

 

Elain raised an eyebrow at that.

 

“I don’t mean _older_ older, just...you’ve lost that girlish look. You look like a woman.”

 

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

 

“You should. It is.” Feyre crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “Can I ask you something about your time there?”

 

Elain finished hanging a dress in the armoire and walked over to the bed, settling down next to Feyre. She gave her sister a small smile and nodded.

 

“They never hurt you? Threatened you?”

 

“No, I was never hurt.” There was a good deal more to her time in Prythian than her answer revealed. But, how could she begin to tell Feyre of the emotions she’d experienced, emotions so intense as to be nearly painful?  Fire Night...the goodbye in the garden shed... How could she explain that she was the mate of a fae male with a horrific past and mysterious powers that he may never be able to use again, for reasons she didn’t even understand? She had left Prythian for a number of reasons, notably her desire to not be tortured by some wicked female inside a mountain. But even if that threat didn’t exist, she would not have wanted to stay. The one thing she was certain of was that humans had no place in the fae realm.

 

“Has Nesta said anything to you about the man we encountered in the forest, just before we got to you?”

 

Elain felt a tremor of fear run through her. She had hoped for so long that her sisters would find her, yet constantly feared what horrible creatures they might encounter should they try. She found it hard to imagine any encounter, aside from the sentries of Tamlin’s estate, would end in anything less than the death of her sisters.

 

“No, she said nothing. I didn’t realize you’d seen someone. Who was it?”

 

“I don’t know his name, but he said he’d just come from the manor. He wasn’t _threatening_ exactly, but there was something so...I don’t know...Like, this power was emanating from him, flowing around him. He was pale, and his face was...well, it was beautiful, honestly. I’ve never seen someone look like him.”

 

_Elain was back in the dining room, pressed against the wall, as Rhysand strolled through her mind with cold indifference. As Lucien fell to his knees, begging to spare her._

 

Feyre continued. “I can’t stop thinking about him. It was only a couple of minutes, hardly an interaction even, but he just keeps popping up in my thoughts. Or I’ll just see him smirking, or hear the sound of his voice, an echo in my head.”

 

“Ah. His name is Rhysand. I told you about Amarantha and the court Under the Mountain? That’s where he lives now, but I think he’s the High Lord of The Night Court. He’s got some history with Tamlin, but I don’t know the nature of it. He was threatening to Tamlin and Lucien, said their time was almost up and that Amarantha would enjoy torturing me. He’s not good, Feyre. He’s awful.”

 

“Do you think he did something to me, to make me think about him?”

 

“I wouldn’t put it past him. He can get into people’s minds, read their thoughts. He did it to me.” Elain’s body had tensed, her hands twisting around each other.

 

“Oh, Elain…” Feyre pulled Elain against her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think about these things. Did Lucien and Tamlin do nothing to stop him?”

 

“They couldn’t. He was too powerful. Lucien tried. He fought for me.” Elain squeezed her eyes shut, trying to calm the rushing flood of emotions. “And Tamlin wants peace with humans. He went out every day to protect his lands, protect his people from threats. Lucien risked himself as well, to keep his court safe, to keep me safe. Not all of the fae are evil. They don’t deserve…”

 

She couldn’t contain it anymore and Feyre caught her sobbing sister, pulling her close. The sun was dropping below the horizon, casting sharp angles of light through the room. Feyre looked up to see a beam of light falling upon Nesta in the doorway, face drawn tight in anger.

* * *

 

 

Elain dug her nails into the windowsill behind her, steadying herself as she tried to will her body to become invisible. There was a tiny slit where the drapes came together in front of her. A bead of sweat started to roll down her forehead and she imagined they could hear it, that any second now the drapes would be yanked apart, and she’d be hauled away and strung up for torture. Through the gap, she could see a sliver of the mirror on the opposite wall, and in that sliver, she saw _him_. His arms were bound in front of him and he was pushed to his knees by some horrid winged creature.

 

“Tell me where she is, Lucien.” _She_ paced around him, seething, her voice dripping with disdain. But Lucien kept his head down and did not speak. Elain watched her as she knelt a few feet in front of him and lifted his chin with her finger, her long black nail digging into his skin. “Your brothers would be disappointed if I killed you here, without an audience. But what would you prefer? We can make a long, slow, agonizing business of it here, now, just for me. Or we can invite them in and proceed with something brutal and bloody, but relatively quick. _Or_...you can tell me where she is, and I might just let you live. Goodness, I’m in a generous mood tonight.”

 

Bile rose in Elain’s throat.  She could taste her own fear. Fear that she’d watch her friend, her mate be slaughtered in front of her. Fear for his suffering. Fear of showing herself to save him only to meet a terrifying end. Fear of what that might do to him, after all he’s been through and lost already. She could not let this happen to him again, but she was paralyzed by fear.

 

Elain’s body begged her to rush out and run to him. To wrap herself around him so Amarantha would have to kill both of them. But, as she imagined herself doing just that, Lucien was yanked to his feet. The winged creature wrapped a sinewy arm around his neck and lifted, squeezing so tightly that his breath was nearly cut off while his feet struggled to reach the floor. And before she could open her mouth to yell, Amarantha slashed a knife down his face, over his remaining eye. She proceeded to dig the knife in, and plopped the eyeball into her hand, as if she’d just cut the pit out from a peach.

 

Lucien’s scream shattered Elain’s heart into a million pieces and she slapped her hands to her mouth, biting hard onto her fingers to contain her own scream, to distract her mind from what was happening just feet away. She began to convulse with a violence that seemed likely to bring the walls down. As her legs gave way, Elain grabbed the drapes on instinct. The drapes fell with her, tangling around her body. She couldn’t move, couldn’t _breathe_ through the thick fabric and-

 

Feyre yanked the sheets from Elain’s head hard enough to rip them just as Nesta grabbed her hands to still her, both of them repeating her name urgently.  As Elain became aware of her surroundings, she frantically pushed her sisters away and sat up against the headboard, her knees drawn up tight.

 

“Elain, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

 

“You were screaming.”

 

She looked back and forth between them, not quite feeling fully awake just yet. Not quite understanding that Amarantha wasn’t about to appear in the room. She yanked her hands away from Nesta and rubbed her face, attempting to smother the vestiges of the nightmare.

 

“I think he’s there. He’s Under the Mountain,” Elain rasped, her voice hoarse from screaming and gasping for air. Nesta handed her the glass of water from her nightstand and she quickly drained it.

 

Feyre reached a hand out and rested it on Elain’s foot. “Lucien, you mean. He’s with that woman in her court?”

 

“He tried to tell me that it would be fine, but I knew - _I knew_ \- it wasn’t true. I knew she was going to hurt them. But I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to believe him, and I left and now I don’t know what’s happening to him.” She wasn’t sure when she had started to cry, but her cheeks were wet, and her breath came in hiccups now. “I’m sitting here with you comforting me and he is there alone.”

 

Feyre picked up Elain’s icy hands and wrapped them between hers to warm them. “Wouldn’t Tamlin be with him? He’d be able to help him, right?”

 

Elain shook her head slowly. “I don’t know that he can. I think she really wanted to hurt them both. He doesn’t have much more power than Lucien. And they know there’s no one coming to help them. They have no hope.”

 

No hope -  Elain’s true nightmare.  And her sisters knew it. They knew this would eat away at her, this helplessness. It would slowly erode her strength. Nesta looked to Feyre, tilting her head to the pillow, and Feyre understood. Without speaking, they did the only thing they could do for their sister. They crawled into her bed on either side of her, just as they had for so long in the cabin, and they pressed their bodies together and slept.

 

* * *

 

 

Elain’s mind raced the next day, unable to give any steady thought to her current circumstances. She went through the motions of tending to the garden, only to find herself crouched in the dirt and uncertain of what she’d been doing. As shadows dropped over the grounds, cooling the air, she stood to watch the sun set. Watching the sun drop below the horizon, she felt the urgency of time, of each passing minute another chance slipping away, to do something, to help him. She couldn’t let more time go by. She knew what she had to do.

 

Elain tracked her sisters down in the library after dinner. Feyre’s face was contorted in concentration over her sketch pad and Nesta was curled into the corner of the sofa, her face buried in a book. Elain gently cleared her throat to get their attention. “I’ve been thinking all day about what I know from my time at The Spring Court, about what might be happening there. They tried to keep me from hearing much, but I’ve overheard enough snippets of conversation - pieced enough together - to have a decent idea. And I need to tell you both. I need you to listen and believe me.”

 

Feyre nodded, then she and Elain turned to Nesta, who gave a curt nod of her own.

 

“I heard them speak of an army under some king. There’s no king in Prythian, just the High Lords, so he must be from somewhere else. He’s readying to start a war, not just in Prythian, but beyond, into the human lands. I think they’re going to try to get through the wall or break it and invade, maybe enslave us again. I don’t know when or who exactly, but I think this Amarantha is part of it. Tamlin talked about a blight that was spreading, affecting magic, affecting his powers, and how it would spread to the human realm eventually. I don’t really understand it, but I know it was real. I think it was part of why they couldn’t remove their masks, why their powers were muted. And I think it’s coming for us.”

 

An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Nesta was the first to break it. “And you mean to do something about it? Is that even possible?”

 

Elain walked to the tall window overlooking her garden and traced a finger down the glass. “I think only the power of the High Lords could stand a chance. Whatever it is, it diminished Tamlin’s power. I think maybe _he_ could do something to stop it if he had his power back. If she is behind the blight or whatever is stifling their powers, we have to find a way to stop her, or help the fae to stop her. We have to get Tamlin’s power back.”

 

Feyre stood and started pacing in front of the fireplace. “This doesn’t seem like enough to form any kind of plan, Elain. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do anything - not if it’s inevitably going to breach the wall. But we need to find out more.”

 

Elain shook her head. “That’s all I know.”

 

“We need more information. There has to be someone left at the house. She wouldn’t have taken everyone, would she?”

 

Nesta shot an icy glare at Feyre. “You are _not_ seriously considering going back there.” She turned to Elain and found she was staring at Feyre, stunned but bright with hope.

 

“I don’t know for sure, but I doubt Amarantha would bother with the lesser fae. I got the impression their position in that world was not much more than ours would be. So, yes, I think it’s possible there are some still there to keep the house and lands. There was a servant who tended to me. Alis. If she’s there…”

 

Nesta sprung from her seat and stalked to Elain, stopping only inches from her and fuming. “If you go back there and Lucien and Tamlin aren’t there to protect you, what do you think will happen? Just how badly do you want to die?”

 

Elain’s answer was quiet, but firm. “If I stay here and do nothing, we will all die or be enslaved. I’d rather die knowing I tried to help. I don’t pretend to have any power or great knowledge, but I won’t give up hope that _something_ can be done to stop this. I _have_ to try.”

 

Feyre stood from her chair. “I’ll go with you.”

 

Nesta simply turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

 

* * *

 

 

Feyre spent the next two days procuring supplies for the trek. She still had her hunting knife, but picked up an extra for Elain. The bulk of the funds she spent went toward ash arrows - as many as they could carry.  Now that she had a good idea of where the break in the wall was, she opted to bring horses who, while cumbersome, would also be more aware of any danger and could provide a faster escape if need be. As Feyre readied the horses, Elain double-checked the bags.

 

A startled bird rocketed from the bushes a few feet away. Nesta had silently approached, her eyes red-rimmed and her face drawn tight. Elain let go of the saddle bag and ran to her, throwing her arms around her older sister. Nesta returned the embrace, burying her face in her sister’s hair. When they pulled apart, Nesta’s gaze turned to Feyre, who was surprised to find it had softened, the edges of her mouth turned up in a sad smile.  They were leaving her. Maybe forever. It hadn’t really occurred to any of them until that moment.

 

Feyre spoke first. “If we don’t…” Her heart pounded, and she suddenly found it hard to breathe. She took a deep breath before she began again. “If we don’t return, you must leave. Get off of the continent.”

 

“How long?”

 

Feyre looked to Elain. “I don’t know. We’ll send word if we can.” Nesta took Feyre’s hand and pressed it between her own. Then she let go and simply nodded to her, a blessing.

 

Feyre and Elain mounted their horses and began their journey back to Prythian.

 


	7. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elain remembers her time Under the Mountain and struggles to adjust to life in her new form after being turned fae. Lucien suspects things are not as they seem with Feyre and has to make a dangerous choice.

“Did you have any idea what was happening to them?”

Nesta stopped pacing, finally. She hadn’t been able to sit still since Lucien had begun telling her about Under the Mountain - about what he saw her sisters go through.

She stood behind her armchair opposite Lucien and ran her hands over the velvet upholstery, drawing lines with her fingers. “No. When I didn’t hear from them after a week, I began to make up stories to comfort myself. Like, maybe things were fine, and they simply chose to stay at the Spring Court. As time wore on, the stories became more elaborate. Maybe they’d actually set sail, and were on a distant continent like they’d once dreamed of. I didn’t _believe_ these. Not really. But I couldn’t comprehend what their reality might be. I don’t think I was capable of imagining such horrors. And, I also felt guilty for not being with them.”

Lucien nodded. “I tried to pretend Elain wasn’t there. She was locked away in a cell most of the time, so it wasn’t all that difficult. Except for the bond - that pulse in my chest from being near her. I couldn’t ignore that. But I would still try to imagine her in the gardens at the Spring Court, looking radiant and alive.“

“You never invited her to visit the Spring Court afterward. Why not?”

“Things were so... _wrong_ then. I was afraid Tamlin might never let her go back home again if she came to Prythian. He was a mess. Every day, becoming more obsessed with Feyre. I tried to convince him to back off, but he wouldn’t. What she’d done to save us was more than you could ever ask of anyone. I think he thought about his family, how he couldn’t save them, and he began to see Feyre as this otherworldly being, too good for anyone. She wasn’t real to him. She was a legend. And he became the protector of the legend. He didn’t want her to ever be hurt again and I watched as he slowly destroyed her. I felt powerless. Keeping Elain from that was the only thing I could think to do. I know it didn’t help Feyre, though. I know I failed _her_.”

“What made you decide to contact The Night Court?”

“When Mor took Feyre away, it sent Tamlin over the edge - farther than I’d ever seen him. And it never ended. He lost his senses. I had always tried to be his voice of reason, but this time it was like talking to a wild animal. Useless. When he told me he wanted to make a deal with Hybern, to get Feyre back, I was shocked...but I also understood. We had lived for fifty years without our powers, a half-life. We’d grown accustomed to it, in a way, so the prospect of inviting Hybern in, in exchange for the promise of some stability, and protection for Feyre… it didn’t feel that awful at first. Not until that day when the king put you and Elain in the Cauldron.“

That day haunted them all, despite the intervening years. Lucien noted Nesta’s furrowed brow, a small sign of the feelings welling up inside her at the mention of the Cauldron. He gave her a moment, then continued.

“That betrayal shattered the illusion. I had to find a way to fight it, a way to get out of our deal. I soon realized that Tamlin wouldn’t give in, though. He was consumed with proving his power, with maintaining some semblance of control over his court. Even when Hybern’s agents showed up, and it was _clear_ they would just as soon wipe us all out for their own ends. So, I began looking for another way. Feyre had come back with us, to the Spring Court, and she was so different.  So much stronger than I’d ever seen her. And her mind...I could tell there was a great deal more going on beneath the surface. She tried to imply she’d been hurt by Rhysand, and Tamlin was desperate to believe her, but it just didn’t fit the female I saw before me. Despite my suspicions, I had nowhere else to turn. Feyre was my only ally. When I found an opportunity, a two-day window to sneak away without much suspicion, I took the chance. I just had to hope that this wasn’t the worst mistake of my life.”

“I can’t believe Azriel showed you any mercy.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “Azriel saved me.”

 

* * *

 

They had left Under the Mountain and returned to the Spring Court with Lucien and Tamlin, who promised to take care of Feyre as she learned the ways of her new body, her elegant and powerful fae form. Elain had hated to leave her, but knew Lucien would be a friend to her sister. And, foremost on her mind was returning to her own home. To Nesta.

Nesta had waited at the chateaux, not fled for safety as Feyre had implored. Being Nesta, it’s likely she had stayed _because_ Feyre had suggested she shouldn’t. Whatever her reason, Elain was profoundly grateful to have the comfort of her sister’s presence when she returned. She was forever changed by the experience, those few torturous weeks having pushed her to limits she could not have fathomed.

Once home, Elain waited impatiently for word from the Spring Court. For months she paid close attention to passersby on the main road.  Some days she would spot a traveler passing their home, thinking perhaps he was coming to deliver an invitation for her to visit Prythian. But the travelers never stopped. No invitation came. Nesta offered no encouragement either, insisting Elain should not hold onto hope that they’d ever see Feyre again, but Elain never stopped waiting.

Feyre did come eventually. Not with Lucien and Tamlin, but with the Night Court. Feyre tried to explain to Elain what had happened, of the turmoil in the Spring Court, of how Rhysand offered her the freedom she needed.

“What of Lucien? Did he not help you?”

Feyre held Elain’s hands gently against her chest. “He tried, Elain. We were all just so... _broken,_ after the mountain. _You_ know. You understand all that happened. You can’t ever really forget it. Then, when I went with Rhys to the Night Court, I learned that what everyone _believed_ him to be was wrong. He’s not who Lucien believes him to be, Elain. I know it seems impossible, but he had reasons to pretend to be the cruel High Lord everyone saw. It was never real, though. He will fight for us, for all of our people. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we need you.”

Elain dubiously considered her sister’s words. Her experience with Rhysand was certainly limited and her view of him informed by Lucien and Tamlin. She could not deny the sincerity in Feyre’s words.

It was a miracle Nesta had allowed the meeting, had allowed these hated fae into their home. The Illyrians that accompanied Feyre were especially enormous. Elain found herself watching them, captivated by the tiny movements of their wings. The one called Azriel seemed to watch her, too - she could feel his gaze, but he was always looking elsewhere when she turned her eyes to him.

 _Feyre lives with these creatures, even loves them it seems._ Of all the things she’d experienced in the last year, this somehow felt the most surreal to Elain.

After the meetings with the queens, Elain tried to make sense of her sister’s world. Wondering took up the rest of her day: wondering about this new life of Feyre’s; wondering if she’d see her again; wondering what had become of Lucien. There were no answers forthcoming. Their lives resumed, focused on the minutiae of the human world.

Gardening, dinners, social calls.

Until Hybern came for them.  Until that waking _nightmare_. And in her final gasp of air, before she was plunged into the darkness, Elain looked to her mate - his face frozen in horror -and sent one last, desperate thought to him. _I don’t want to die._

 

* * *

 

 

When he and Tamlin returned from Hybern with Feyre, Lucien woke early each morning, before anyone else, and walked through the gardens. The seeds Elain had planted had grown considerably, their velvety purple flowers soft and delicate to touch. _She is alive. My mate is alive._ He had to remind himself of that when, so often at night, he’d close his eyes and see her pale limbs disappear into the Cauldron. _She is alive_.

He didn’t let himself dwell on _where_ she was.

The agents from Hybern arrived, and his days and nights were filled with meetings and scouting. In between, he watched Feyre and wondered just what had happened to her, and what was going on inside her head now.

Lucien had been tasked with chaperoning Hybern’s agents through the western territory of the Spring Court, much to their dismay. Brannagh and Dagdan barely contained their disdain whenever he spoke despite his attempts at neutrality. He was never good at holding his tongue, but he sensed these two had enough power to destroy him with little effort, so he strived to keep himself in check.

It helped that he found himself distracted often, his thoughts pulled back to that horrible day as he watched his mate drown in the Cauldron, her human life swallowed by that darkness and spat out as something raw and new. The mating bond, when she came out, was intensified, _singing_ in his blood, and he could barely restrain himself. Rage warred within him, rage at the king, at Tamlin, at Ianthe - for letting this happen to Elain and Nesta. He had felt their pure terror. It had coursed through him, shaking him, as if _he_ were the one being thrown into the murky depths. And still, even in the face of  that rage, there was relief. There was _hope_.

Elain was fae. She was immortal. And though he had no right, he felt that hope bloom in his chest, that he might have time with her. That he might have his mate one day. 

What would Elain make of him now, welcoming Hybern into the Spring Court after what the king had done? His entire life had been an exercise in internal conflict. Loyalty versus love, safety versus freedom. Would she ever forgive him this, his loyalty to Tamlin? Would he ever forgive himself?

Feyre had accompanied them today, as she had most days. Feyre, who had cowered from Tamlin’s fury, who had begged for her freedom, who had grown quiet and subservient when last he knew her, now held herself carefully tall, a previously unknown strength rippling beneath the surface. She _acted_ grateful, relieved. But Lucien knew, though he did not voice it, that she was now the one wearing a mask. He could not guess at her endgame. But there was a game in play. After years as an emissary in the seven scheming Fae courts, he had learned to notice such things. Lucien was fairly certain she did not hate _him_ , though. And that was enough for him to be her friend, especially now as he entertained treasonous thoughts.

“Did you know them, the others from Rhysand’s court? The ones who were with you in Hybern.”

Feyre motioned him to stop walking, and looked back to make sure the agents were out of earshot. “I did, a little. They were around.”

“They are known, the Illyrians. Fearsome. Powerful. Brutal.” Feyre betrayed no emotion, simply letting Lucien speak. “The one who was shot, the Shadowsinger…”

“Azriel.”

“I have heard he is the Spymaster. He is Rhysand’s eyes and ears. Everywhere and nowhere, all at once. Is that true?”

“I...didn’t know him well. He was often gone. I can’t say what he might have been doing.” Lucien nodded, and they resumed walking. 

It’s not that she was a bad liar. She lied well enough, actually. But Lucien had spent enough time with her sister to know something of Feyre as well. They both had a tell.  He’d seen Elain do it now and again, when she was masking her feelings or not being forthright. She would bite her lower lip, just a little. And he found Feyre did it as well. It was confirmation enough.

He would go to Azriel.

 

* * *

 

That evening, he and Tamlin met with the agents to plan the next few days. Brannagh and Dagdan wanted to further investigate the areas he’d just taken them, and insisted his presence was not necessary. Tamlin had no need of him, either, as he’d been taken off the guard patrols to be made chaperone. Which meant this was his window. He had to go. The gravity of the situation struck him suddenly, rippling across his skin in flames. He would be killed without hesitation if Tamlin found out. Feyre could be caught in the middle, if Tamlin was paranoid enough to suspect collusion, especially if Ianthe had a say. And he very well may be killed on sight by Azriel, though he doubted the Shadowsinger would miss out on the opportunity to torture him for information first. _Well, isn’t this just a brilliant plan?_

Lucien found Tamlin in the study after everyone else had retired for the evening. “I’d like to do a border sweep tomorrow. I don’t want any surprises while we’re planning here, and we haven’t done a full inspection in too long now.”

“I can go with you. Cover more ground that way.”

Lucien stepped forward, idly thumbing through papers on the desk, feigning nonchalance. “No, don’t bother, really. I can manage. And do you really want to leave Feyre here alone with Hybern’s agents and Ianthe? There’s been some tension lately.”

“No, you’re right. Things are far too volatile right now. Be back in two days, though. We’ve got a lot of work left here. And don’t get into any trouble.”

“Me? Trouble?” Lucien’s casual smirk belied the wave of nerves and nausea threatening to send him to the nearest potted plant to lose his stomach. Bidding Tamlin goodnight, he quickly made his way to his room and readied himself to leave for Night Court territory at first light.

 

* * *

 

“Shhh...Elain...shhhh...it’s okay. You’re safe. _Safe_ ,” Nesta repeated. She nestled her body against her sister’s, but kept her limbs to herself. She’d learned not to put her arm around Elain after a nightmare. Elain didn’t like to feel like she was being held down. But, having Nesta’s body near hers did seem to help. Soon enough, Elain sat up, swinging her feet to the floor.

“Elain…”

“It’s okay Nesta. I just need some fresh air for a minute. I’ll be back. Go back to sleep.”

Nesta had begun sleeping in Elain’s bed after her first night back from Under the Mountain, when Elain awoke countless times in a panic, uncertain of her surroundings. Then, after they’d been taken to Hybern - their lives transformed by the icy, merciless water of the Cauldron - Nesta had become even more protective of her younger sister. Wracked with guilt and rage, Nesta regularly succumbed to her own nightmares, clawing for a surface that never seemed to appear. Though they were safe at the House of Wind, they clung to each other at night, and circled each other protectively during the day.

Now, Nesta watched from their shared bed as Elain pulled a cloak around her shoulders and slipped out onto the balcony. The night sky was resplendent with stars, but she was too deep in thought to notice. Her nightmares were always the same, flashbacks of the worst moments Under the Mountain.... Reaching blindly in her cell, in the darkness, finding only cold, rough stone. Lucien chained to the floor, on the verge of being impaled, burned, slaughtered along with her sister. The Attor rounding on her for escaping her cell, his leathery fists pounding her face. Her sister’s pleading eyes as she pressed a blade into Tamlin’s chest. And the awful, disorienting sensation of being flung through the air into a pillar, with a mere flick of Amarantha’s wrist.

But even her good dreams were sad ones... Lucien’s unmasked face shadowing hers, his hair shrouding them as he wept over her broken form. His hands dancing across her head, healing the fractures. The two of them shattered, but alive. Each goodbye they’d had.

 _Our entire relationship was just a series of goodbyes_. Elain drew her arms tight across her chest, warding off the night chill, as her thoughts turned to their final conversation Under the Mountain.

 

* * *

 

 

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

She’d opened every door she could find in that accursed place, and had very nearly given up, when she noticed the small study at the end of a deserted hall. Lucien was hunched over the desk, leafing through papers. He straightened quickly at the door opening unexpectedly, and a breath shuddered through him. He rubbed a hand over his face. _His face_. The angles of his cheekbones, the golden hue of his skin somehow making his hair seem a more vibrant red than before, it was all before her. Finally.

“Sorry. I’ve been busy with meetings. We’ll be going back to The Spring Court tomorrow.” He returned to shuffling the papers.

“I could have sworn you were avoiding me.”

Lucien had barely looked at her, and still he did not meet her gaze. “Why would I do that?”

“You’re upset that I came here.”

Lucien looked at her then. A click and whir. He walked around the desk to stand in front of her, a sad smile lifting the edges of his mouth. “I would have gladly spent the rest of my life in this mountain if it meant you were safe. I was so angry...at myself...when I saw you both. I was selfish with you, Elain, when you came to say goodbye to me in that shed. I should have stopped you. I should have pushed you away and walked away without a word, but I wanted you so badly. And I thought that would be the last time I ever saw you and I just wanted...I wanted to touch you before you left. And I hate myself for it now. You wouldn’t have been compelled to return - to risk yourself, your sister, for someone like me - if I hadn’t done that. Your sister suffered so greatly, _died_ because of me. You were _beaten_ because of me.” His voice shook, with anger and sadness and self-loathing.

Elain stepped away from him, afraid she might strike him if she remained near. Caustically, she asked, “It’s all because of you, then? Everything that happens to me? Is that what I am to you? Someone whose feelings you manipulate at your leisure?” Lucien sputtered, trying to interrupt Elain, to deny and explain, but she forged ahead fiercely.

“I may not have come to the Spring Court by choice, but it WAS _my_ choice to care about you. And you did not make it easy. I care about you _in spite of_ your best efforts, Lucien. You do not get to take credit for that. I have _earned_ that. And when I sat in my house, on the other side of the wall - unable to function because I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing you being tortured, seeing you suffering alone - that was because _I_ opened my heart to you. _You_ did not pry it open. And I know you don’t believe you deserve any love, but I am giving it to you anyway. Because I want to. Because I think you deserve it. And you can’t _stop_ me.”

Elain met Lucien’s shocked gaze evenly, but she was shaking. She hadn’t meant to blurt all of that, to let loose a torrent of emotion, to throw everything at him all at once and without preamble. But she was exhausted, her walls paper thin. Spending the last few weeks ready to die at any moment had erased any hesitancy to speak her heart.

Their shaky breathing was all that filled the space between them. Then, Lucien held a hand out - an invitation. Elain grasped it, stepping forward, and he pulled her against him, burying his face in her hair.

“You are right. It would be easier for me if I could blame myself for all of it. I...I don’t know how to accept your love, Elain. I spent so long rearranging myself so I would never feel an empty place inside. I don’t know what to do.”

Elain’s hands moved to draw circles on his back, pressing firmly into small knots in the muscles beneath her fingers, and she felt him slowly relax in her arms. “I know it’s hard for you. You live so much longer. I imagine you don’t feel the urgency that humans do.” He made to protest, but she ignored him and continued. “We can’t be together. I understand that. But I want you to know, when you’re back home, that I _am_ thinking of you. That I will always cherish you, and want you to find happiness.”

Lucien couldn’t speak. His throat constricted and tears slid silently down his cheeks. He closed his eyes and felt the strange sensation of the air drying his tears as they fell, no longer trapped beneath a mask. “I will always cherish you, too, Elain.”

She pulled back and looked at him, her cheeks flushed. “Promise me you’ll watch over Feyre. You’ll keep her safe and be a friend to her. I will never be able to repay her for what she did. She saved us all.”

“I promise. Of course, I promise. We’ll keep her safe. And when we get settled, when things are clear, you’ll visit, yes?”

“Yes. I would love that.”

 

* * *

 

 

Lucien stood in the middle of the narrow road. The surrounding forest encroached on it, poised to swallow him right up. The forest was eerily quiet. He was in Night Court territory now. He knew it wouldn’t be long before someone took an interest in his presence.

The midday sun filtered through the branches canopied over the road. He’d just finished eating an apple when an old man crested the hill before him, leaning on a crooked cane, his clothes a patchwork of rags. He stopped ten feet before Lucien. Whatever this creature was, Lucien wasn’t foolish enough to believe it wouldn’t tear him into pieces if he so much as flinched.

“You are far from home, Fox.”

“I have no home.”

“Do you not, then? What business do you have here?”

Lucien hesitated. He was certain this had to be an agent of the Court, but still, what if he was wrong? He had gambled this far. There was no turning back. “I want to speak with the Shadowsinger.”

The old man’s eyes grew black and venomous. A ripple of darkness fell over his features. He took one step backward...and disappeared.  And Lucien waited. Hours passed and the darkness of night began to creep into the woods. He would have to leave soon, or risk the creatures who prowled this forest in darkness. As he pushed off from the tree he’d been leaning against, he felt a brush of wind against his cheek. The Shadowsinger stood, not five feet from him, with his arms folded across his chest, siphons glowing. Before Lucien could open his mouth to speak, Azriel wrapped an arm around him and rocketed into the sky, the world shrinking rapidly below them.

Lucien’s vision blurred and eventually blacked out entirely. When he woke, he had no idea how much time had passed, but he was sitting in a chair in the middle of a room: no windows, illuminated by a solitary fae light hovering above his head. He was unbound, but his limbs felt heavy and his reactions delayed. Some kind of drug, perhaps.

A deep voice floated out from the darkness behind him. “Feyre?”

Lucien cleared his throat. “She was well when I left.”

Azriel walked slowly around Lucien, his feet drifting over the stone floor soundlessly and shadows swirled about him, swallowing the light as it touched his edges. He stopped before Lucien and stared, waiting for him to meet his gaze. As Lucien’s head lifted, Azriel asked, “Why are you here, Lucien? What do you want?”

“I want to know if Elain is hurt, if you are harming her in any way-” The words fell panicked from his lips, so he stopped abruptly. _I can’t let me emotions take over. I need to remain calm._

“Is that it? That’s the only question you have? So, if I answer that, we will be done?”

“No. I…” For all the mental rehearsing he had done, Lucien found himself without words just now, perhaps due to the drug.

“Elain and her sister have not been harmed. That is all I will say. You may convey that to Feyre and no one else.”

Lucien was relieved, but his surprise at this revelation was not as great as it might have been. He had begun to suspect The Night Court was not the den of iniquity and terror everyone believed it to be. His instinct was to play into Azriel’s assumptions - to help them continue the charade - but he had to override his impulse and stay with his plan. If he couldn’t risk himself now, it would all be for naught. He needed to be honest with Azriel and hope that the Shadowsinger would believe him. So, he spoke his gamble - the truth.

“I cannot offer anything to you at the moment, not beyond what you already know, but...I do not believe Hybern will harbor good intentions once they settle in The Spring Court. Not toward our citizens, and certainly not toward those beyond the wall. I know Rhys opposes the king. I want to know if you will fight. Will you fight for Prythian, for the humans, like you did in the war, or will you fight just to protect The Night Court?”

Azriel tilted his head. “You would like me to tell you _our_ plans, and then return you to our _enemy_. Am I getting this right?”

“I don’t expect you to answer me. Not now.” Lucien answered hurriedly, and rolled his neck to loosen the tension. “I would _never_ harm Feyre. I care about her. And, she is my mate’s sister. I want you to understand that, to believe me. But I can tell she is different. She has trained. She’s trying to hide it, but I can see it in the way she moves. She’s strong. And the only place she could have done that is with you. I think there are a great many things I don’t know about what goes on in The Night Court. And I think you use that secrecy, that deception, to your advantage. I am not trying to expose you. But just to let you know that _I_ know Feyre has a plan of some kind, and I don’t want to be caught on the wrong side. I don’t believe we need to be enemies.”

“What do you see through your eye?”

Azriel was good at this. Keeping him defensive, keeping him off balance. Lucien admired him, his dedication. There was something oddly comforting about his presence, which seemed a strange trait to have as an interrogator. Or perhaps that served him well - gained trust. Lucien looked at the Shadowsinger and let his eye click and whir a few extra times for good measure. To Lucien’s surprise, when he focused that eye on Azriel, he saw a boy, like himself. Alone. Afraid. His hands were scarred - such a rare sight amongst the fae. Like his own scar, a walking reminder to everyone he met that he was vulnerable. That someone had bested him. Lucien used his wit, his eye, and his tenacity, to counteract the scar. Azriel had honed himself into a fierce warrior, a bloodthirsty assassin, a silent threat cloaked in shadows. They were alike in this way.

“I see through your shadows.”

Azriel stumbled backward, like he’d been pushed by an invisible hand. His chest heaved and his siphons pulsed. Despite the physical reaction, his tone remained even and aloof. “You see nothing.”

Lucien lowered his head again. He couldn’t look at Azriel anymore, at the darkness rolling off of him in waves, now creeping around Lucien’s hands. “Will you watch over Elain? Please?” He hadn’t meant to ask that. It seemed absurd as the words left his mouth, but he had no choice. He’d already crossed this bridge. “I should go back now. If I’m late, Tamlin will suspect something. I can’t leave Feyre alone there.”

“What makes you think I’m letting you go?”

 


	8. Bats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elain slowly comes out of hiding in Velaris thanks to Azriel. Lucien escapes The Spring Court with Feyre. With war descending, Elain, Lucien, and Azriel must face the what's happening between the three of them.

Nesta stopped abruptly as she rounded the corner near the cafe, then quickly doubled back. Attempting to look casual, she leaned against the signpost outside a glassware shop and thumbed through her bag, a frown of concentration plastered on her face. _Pretending to look for something in your bag? Get a grip, Nesta._

Nesta maintained her half-hearted facade and allowed herself a few moments to observe. Lucien was seated, facing away from her, at a small, round table on the sidewalk. He’d finished his coffee and was animatedly gesturing to the female across from him, who rested her head on her fist, propped up by her elbow on the glass tabletop. She smirked at him and raised an eyebrow. Lucien barked with laughter and threw his hands up in surrender.

Nesta had found, after years of interviewing, that you could glean a great deal about a person from watching them with their loved ones: the spontaneous moments of joy, the bickering from knowing which buttons to push, the casual intimacy of touch. Lucien especially was guarded around larger groups, defensively tossing out witty barbs. But when he was alone with his family, his joy bubbled to the surface in a surprisingly giddy way.

He kept so much of himself hidden just for them. Years of betrayal, of abandonment and lost trust, had made him a wary companion, but when he loved and trusted, it was wholeheartedly. Nesta noted that love and trust now - in his relaxed posture and easy laughter. The female shook her head and rolled her eyes at him, her smile growing wider. Nesta stepped out from behind the signpost and started up the sidewalk toward them.

“Auntie Nes!” Nesta stopped again, this time bracing herself for the crushing hug of her niece -  who’d leapt up from her seat the second she spotted her aunt. Lucien turned in his chair and smirked at Nesta from his seat, fully enjoying this display.

Nesta gripped her niece’s arms gently and surveyed her jubilant face. “Well, this is a lovely surprise. I thought you’d be completely immersed in Dawn Court business for a while.”

Lucien stood now and offered his seat to Nesta, who took it and waited expectantly for the details. “Raya is just here for the night and is heading back tomorrow. She can’t bear to be around us for more than a day, and apparently she has some extremely boring things to deliver to Rhys or something - I haven’t really listened to anything she’s said.”

Raya smacked his arm playfully and rolled her eyes. “I’ll never understand why my mother insists on being with dramatic men.”

Lucien feigned hurt. “I think the word you’re looking for is _passionate_.”

This time Nesta rolled her eyes and mouthed - _drama_ \- to Raya.

Raya gave Lucien a kiss on the cheek. “I do have to run now to get to the meeting. I’ll see you both tonight for dinner.” She strode up the street, her deep auburn hair swinging with her purposeful stride.

Lucien sat across from Nesta and crossed his leg over the other, a deeply contented smile on his face. “You’re not allowed to ask me about sad things right now. I don’t want to break the spell.”

“Well, you’re in luck. I was going to ask about your adventure finding Vassa. And, depending on how long that takes, maybe you’ll get to tell me a little bit about what happened after the war.”

He smirked and shook his head at Nesta. “Oh, you’ve been dying for those details for a long time, haven’t you?”

 

* * *

 

Wolf. Beast. Fox. Bats.

The shadows always became real.

They circled above her now - diving down and soaring up, blocking out the sun as they swooped in front of her - so closely that wind rushed into her face, blowing tendrils of her hair loose from her braid. Her stomach dropped each time they dived, and she gasped whenever they shot up into the sky, impossibly quick and nimble... until they landed with a solid crunch on the stone veranda, and she swore the mountain itself shook.

Cassian winked at her and strolled by without a word, calling for her sister, knowing full well he’d not get a response. Not a cordial one, at least.

Elain turned to find Azriel gazing out at the city beyond, his scarred hands fiercely gripping the stone rail’s smooth beveled edge. His skin stretched tightly over his knuckles, mottled hues revealing the small bits of skin that had escaped the worst of the burns. His body was a battleground, forever haunted by remnants of its unwitting wars. She was mesmerized by him. Was it simply that she was drawn to his shadows, recognizing something in him that visited her as well?

She watched him tilt his head forward, hair falling over his eyes, as she summoned the courage to speak. “Cassian’s wings seem better. Are you healed as well?” Elain had only just begun engaging with them, as the shock of her transformation finally began to lessen. For a while she had been content to never speak except to answer Nesta’s queries, but something inside her now pushed through the darkness, like a seedling inching through the cracked earth toward the warm promise of light.

Azriel turned fully toward her and nodded, a shy smile appearing on his face. But his eyes remained down, as if talking to her feet. How could this powerful male, who’d lived hundreds of years beyond her own, feel any reticence in her presence? His voice grew from a low rumble, easing into the words he was looking for. “Hmm...yes, Cassian’s wings are much improved. He pushes them more than he should, but that’s to be expected. I am... completely healed. I feel good. Thank you for asking.” He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead only for it to spring forward again, dancing over his eyebrows. “You...you seem...well, fresh air is good. I…”

His hesitation was intriguing her more than she cared to admit. Were she more familiar with him, she might tease him for his unease. But she waited.

“Feyre mentioned you enjoy gardening, and I was just thinking - you’re so far away from anything green up here on the mountain. You might not be ready to leave The House of Wind just yet, so maybe I could bring up some potted plants for you...If you wanted?”

Elain’s face broke into a beatific smile, surprising even herself. It was the first moment since being made fae that she felt genuine elation at the simple kindness of another. Azriel’s answering smile transformed his face, and they found themselves grinning fools on the side of a mountain. “That would be lovely. Thank you, Azriel.”

Just then Cassian stomped out onto the veranda, his face red and taut - the usual effect of his daily spar with Nesta. “We need to get going. You don’t have much time left for...the thing, right?”

Azriel’s face transformed again, back into the Shadowsinger, a carefully indifferent mask. “Right. Good afternoon, Elain.” They shot into the air without another word, Cassian angling toward Velaris, and Azriel veering off toward the eastern forest. Elain walked back into the house and felt exhaustion creep into her bones. Before she could take three steps toward her bedroom, a cacophony, like a discordant, howling wind, filled her ears. She gripped the back of a chair to steady herself, knowing what was coming next. A pressure, like hands squeezing inside her head, forced her eyes closed. There it was, flickering before her. The vision.

_Lucien’s face rippled with emotions, the deep drawn angles of anguish giving way to surprise and awe, softening its structure into the very face of love. He stumbled forward, and scarred hands caught him. Azriel drew his thumb down Lucien’s scar. Dipping his head, he replaced his hands with his lips, a ghost of a kiss, a shaking whispered promise of acceptance._

Nesta wrapped her arms around Elain, whose hands still gripped the chair with shocking strength. As Elain slowly emerged from the vision, she could hear her sister’s murmurings of comfort, a beckoning back to reality. “Are you back now? Are you okay? Do you want me to take you to your bedroom?”

Elain loosened her grip and nodded weakly. Words were slow to come after the visions, her body needing to remember its usual faculties. As she lie in bed later, she lamented not the visions themselves, but the uncertainty, the heavy unknown that accompanied them. As the seer, was it also upon her to apply meaning? Who else could interpret what only she could see? What, then, was she to make of _this_?

 

* * *

 

 

Azriel ascended the stones steps carved into the rocky outcropping. Vegetation swallowed much of the trail, forcing him to duck under low-hanging branches. He rested his hand on the ornate door cut into the rock face and it creaked open, his siphons flickering as he passed through the ward.

Lucien was sitting on the cushioned chair in the corner, dual torches lighting the pages of his book. He glanced up as Azriel entered the room. “You may find this shocking, but 1,000-year-old books are painfully boring. You could have at least left me with some post-war psychological thriller or Summer Court erotica.”

Azriel leaned against a pillar, his arms crossed over his chest. “I recognize the risk you took coming here, Lucien. Rhys also understands. We are trusting your history with Feyre, trusting that you would never want harm to come to her. And we’re asking you to trust us now, with Elain. We’re balancing on this beam together. We all topple if one of us falters.”

Lucien set the book on the shelf against the wall and swallowed, his face growing serious. “I know.”

Azriel slowly nodded in return. “The only thing I can tell you is to trust Feyre. If she asks anything of you, do it. Don’t say anything to her of our meeting - she won’t know what to believe in any case. But give her your trust. We will protect you. And should you remain true to your word, you will be welcome here.”

Lucien looked to the bookshelf, gathering his thoughts. “Did you see _her_?”

“Yes.” A hint of a smile pulled at Azriel’s lips as he recalled their conversation. “I told her I’d bring some plants to her. Is there anything in particular she might like?”

Lucien’s eyebrows arched, bemused by Azriel’s inquiry. “I think she likes most everything. I don’t recall any one plant being her favorite. That was good of you, Azriel. Thank you.”

They departed shortly thereafter, with Azriel applying a mild sedation spell to keep the location secret, a tenuous trust still building between them. Lucien took leave of Azriel on the edge of The Spring Court territory, with a headful of anecdotes to share should Tamlin ask details of his excursion.

Azriel stood, enveloped by his shadows and the shade of a willow tree, and watched Lucien go. A pang of loss echoed through him. He could not name it precisely, but there was a connection between them born of a rare understanding. Lucien had told him everything of his past as they sat in the cold stone room, carved into the rock. He hadn’t expected it, had asked on a whim. But Lucien had leveled his gaze, looked into his eyes, and when Azriel heard the subtle whir of Lucien’s metal eye, he found himself brushing his shadows away to let a rare light shine over his face. The shadows were his power, allowing him to be a cold voice in the darkness. And sometimes, the shadows were his prison, separating him from the spontaneous connections that could spring between two souls through a meeting of eyes, through a story. He could not say what compelled him to brush them away in that moment, but it felt good to do it, to expose himself for a moment and feel the force of another’s vision upon him. Lucien’s furrowed brow smoothed, and his entire countenance eased, like he’d tossed a rope and felt the gentle tug of reassurance. _I’m here._ They had both crossed the line in that moment, and Azriel made a silent promise to himself that he would tell his story to Lucien some day.

 

* * *

 

Lucien’s life had been composed of torn allegiances, the inevitable story of the abused. The need for love and security, being universal, is sought by all in whatever forms it is offered - twisted as they may be. He had never known a love that hadn’t also betrayed.

In one wild moment in the forest, after Feyre’s shockingly brutal disposal of the Hybern agents and her menacing vengeance upon Ianthe, Lucien’s future came into focus with sudden clarity. To betray, you must first be allied. To leave with Feyre, to escape Tamlin and Hybern by running with her, was no betrayal on his part. Tamlin had long ago turned on him. It may have taken him a long time to understand it, but in that moment in the forest, there was only one way forward. And it lead to The Night Court.

They ran, and he felt a stubborn pride when he took Feyre into the beautiful Autumn Court territory. He could never shake his roots, the fire that ran through his blood, the power imbued in him by birth. The faebane poisoning them may have dimmed his powers, but he felt confident they would reach their destination.

Until Eris. _Cauldron damn him._ “Run!”Lucien cried out, urging Feyre as they fled together.  If anything happened to her...if she died...he’d come back from the dead if need be to exact punishment on his brothers, and his father.

On that frozen lake, his brothers’ fists met his flesh in a bloodthirsty frenzy and he returned the blows with unending rage, content to meet his end fighting them. Until darkness suddenly descended, and he lie frozen - caked in blood, shallowly breathing - waiting. He could see nothing through his metal eye, but his other settled on the male in the shadows, whose siphons pulsed with a threatening hum.

Azriel’s knees hit the ice, tiny cracks arcing away from the point of their impact. He leaned over Lucien and wiped away the blood covering his eye. “I think you owe me one, Fox.” Azriel grasped his hand and they rose together. Feyre had sent his brothers away, had given them a wholly undeserved reprieve, and were he not utterly exhausted he might have fought against such actions, but he had nothing left as he looked wearily to the three before him. Azriel held a beckoning hand out to him. “Let’s go home.”

Lucien watched Azriel’s wings, his powerful frame shuddering against the wind as they soared and tried not to consider how intimate it felt to be held by him, completely at his mercy. As they neared a city - beautiful and vibrant - Lucien tensed, unable to comprehend the sight before him. Elain was here. “What is this…?”

“As I said before, you are welcome here.”

 

* * *

 

One week. Two months. Two hundred years. Infinite. For creatures with no expiration date, there was a shocking amount of urgency amongst them in the months they went to war against Hybern. Azriel flew into battle, drew deep into the dark well of his pain, and unleashed his wrath as if he’d been saving it for this war since his birth. He _had_ been, of course. Azriel had vast reserves of wrath, of vengeance. The longer he kept it inside, the darker his shadows became.

On the side of a mountain, Illyrian soldiers gathered in tents to wait, agitated and itching for battle. Lucien greeted a guard, who nodded and stepped aside to allow him entrance. Lucien’s presence at Azriel’s side had become common enough that he could come and go with little regard. Being ignored by an Illyrian was high praise as far as he was concerned - the less attention they paid to him, the better. He pulled back the fabric hanging over the doorway to Azriel’s tent. The winds were icy and relentless in the mountains, forcing even the hardiest of souls to seek shelter. Azriel looked up from the table, maps haphazardly scattered in front of him, rolled edges held in place by rocks. Lucien stepped inside and shuddered from the chill that had crept into him.

“I’m leaving tomorrow. To find Vassa.” He had planned to ease into this but found himself blurting it out as soon as he saw Azriel, saw the tension in his face as he considered their impossible odds in this war.

Azriel nodded and eased around the table. “Cassian told me. Elain is certain of what she saw?”

Lucien hummed lightly. “I trust her visions.”

Azriel glanced about the tent, as if he’d just remembered something. “I have some food. I missed dinner. Will you join me?”

“Yes, of course.”

They ate in companionable silence for some time, a nervous energy between them. He thought back on the first time they’d shared a meal. Lucien had only been at the House of Wind for a short while. Elain was still there, still struggling - with becoming fae, with her visions, with her sister’s anger, with the loss of her home. And Lucien, through the bond, had felt the heavy weight of all her worries and fears. He tried to coax her out, but she was fragile. So he held himself back as much as he could. Azriel became a buffer between the two of them, diverting some of the intensity of the bond that threatened to overwhelm them both.

Lucien had sparred with Azriel in the training ring one morning, putting all his frustration and anger into his attacks, kicking up a dust that left them both a mess. Afterward, he’d stalked off to a nearby waterfall, wanting the icy cold mountain water to shock the worries and frustrations out of him. It worked; his muscles were tight and straining as he scrubbed the grime away.  He stood in the waist-deep water and shook his head like an animal, splattering droplets against the leaves of the trees hanging over the water’s edge.

Azriel landed a moment later with a small sack in one hand, a bottle of ale in the other, and some fresh clothes tucked under his arm. “I thought you might want something clean to change into. And some food.” He tossed the shirt and pants to Lucien, who swiped them both out of the air and nodded his thanks. Lucien slipped the shirt over his head, holding the end up so it didn’t touch the water, then he stepped out onto the bank to pull on his pants. He chanced a glance at Azriel and found him turned not away, but angled to the side, his eyes cast to the ground. He’d also bathed and was wearing fresh clothes, the buttons of his tunic open to the top of his chest. Lucien noticed Azriel’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed when he noticed Lucien watched through his hair hanging over his face.

Azriel set the sack to the ground and opened it to reveal some fresh bread, dried fruits, and cured meats. They sat and ate together, and slowly their conversation blossomed into an easy back and forth. Lucien shared his stories as emissary and Azriel recalled moments of Night Court history few knew of. As the afternoon sun grew warmer, Lucien sat back on his elbows in the grass and tilted his head back, the sun, filtered through trees, flickering on his neck. His eyes were closed, but he heard Azriel’s wings shift. He opened his eyes to see his friend lying next to him on his back, wings spread out above him and eyes closed as the sun danced over his pale skin.

A gust of wind shook the edge of the tent and Lucien was pulled from his memory. He had come to say goodbye. He’d paced on the edges of the creek near the cottages tucked away from the camp’s soldiers. For half an hour he debated what to say, trying to determine what exactly was compelling him to go to Azriel. In the end, he simply obeyed his instincts. He owed Azriel a great deal, cared about him in a way he couldn’t quite articulate...and the fact of the matter was, he did not know what would happen to him on this journey, nor what danger might befall the others should they face Hybern before he returned. Goodbye was all he had. Azriel refilled their goblets with wine. Just as Lucien opened his mouth to speak, Azriel cleared his throat.

“I want to tell you my story. What happened to me, the things that left their mark on me. You told me your story once, and I’d like to do the same.”

Lucien’s mouth still hung open, caught completely by surprise at Azriel’s statement. He simply closed his mouth and nodded.

As Azriel spoke, Lucien noted his shadows, the way they would dance around him, drawing tighter and opaquer at certain moments. When they grew too dark, when his story grew too dark, Azriel rolled his shoulders, shaking the shadows loose. He watched Azriel’s hands as he spoke of the fire, how his thumb rubbed the scarred back of the other hand, just like Lucien found himself doing where the nail had punctured his own hand.

When finally, Azriel finished, his voice raw from the cold, dry air and yet welling with emotion, Lucien reached across the table and laid his hand over Azriel’s. His palm cradled the tops of Azriel’s fingers, fingertips brushing the bones of his wrist. Azriel’s eyes focused solely on their hands stacked together and slowly he placed his other hand atop Lucien’s, his touch featherlight. “Be careful when you’re out there.”

Lucien’s voice came out barely more than a whisper. “Of course. I’ll see you when I return.” There was the slightest lift at the end, a hint of a question. _Will I see you? Will we all survive?_ In answer, Azriel squeezed his hands together, ever so slightly, drawing the heat from Lucien’s hand into his own. Azriel withdrew his hands too quickly. The chilly air enveloped Lucien’s hand and he held it loosely at his side, afraid to touch it against anything lest he lose the remnants of that final touch. He glanced back at Azriel as he was leaving the tent and nodded one last time. Azriel remained still, staring back at Lucien, watching him go.

 

* * *

 

Azriel flew to the base camp, situated down the mountain from the soldiers’ deployment camp. It was sheltered by an outcropping of fir trees which, on this cold evening, were frosted white with the beginnings of a snowstorm. A small cluster of cottages followed a meandering creek, their windows glowing and chimneys billowing smoke. The leaders met here, as did the rest of the Inner Circle and Feyre’s sisters, who were still feeling their way in this new world. Leaving them behind in Velaris was unconscionable. Nesta, with her untested, unknown powers - raw and uncertain. Elain with her blossoming sight. She was the reason Lucien had left for Vassa, as she’d seen where she was, what had happened to her, and where her allegiances lie. Elain’s visions were proving useful to the effort against Hybern, and Azriel knew they needed every advantage they could get.

He walked up the cobblestone path to the door and gently knocked.  Azriel was surprised when Elain opened the door; Nesta always seemed to be the gatekeeper. She answered his confused look. “Nesta’s gone to speak with Rhys and Cassian. I think she fancies herself a general.” Her eyes twinkled with mirth. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

Azriel smiled and shook his head in amusement. He hadn’t expected her to be in a such a mood, not after having her goodbyes with Lucien. She welcomed him in and he sat on a stool by the fire, the stone outer walls doing little to dispel the cold air. Elain sat in the cushioned chair opposite him and with her foot, nudged a log that had fallen from the flames.

He watched the light dancing across her features, leaping over pink cheeks flushed from the heat of the fire. He hated himself for it, but he found himself often comparing Elain to Mor. Mor, whom he’d loved since he could remember, a powerful, beautiful, and utterly intimidating creature. Mor, who had survived and fought and learned to laugh again while he inched his shadows closer to her, becoming addicted to her presence. The sound of her laugh was now as reassuring as the sound of water lapping against the rocks lining the Sidra.

It wasn’t until Elain arrived that he’d started to see what Mor had become to him, that he’d placed her on a pedestal - an impossible, untouchable ideal meant for no one, certainly not him. It had happened so gradually over the centuries: with each painful visit to the Court of Nightmares, where he envisioned eviscerating her family for their sins against her; with each meal at the House of Wind where she would saunter into the room in a new dress that always managed to hug her perfect curves and yet billow around her, like she carried her own summer breeze. Everyone had paled next to her.

And then Elain arrived. Elain, who was lovely in the simplest ways - her skin impossibly soft, her hair a cascade of ringlets falling against her gentle form. She was utterly unlike Mor. And for the first time in... more years than he could recall, he found himself not noticing when Mor entered a room if Elain was already there, his attention having already been claimed. _Does Mor know? Does she notice anything has changed? What must it be like for Lucien, to be mated to Elain, to feel that connection?_

 _How perfect, to have left one unrequited love for another._ There were technicalities, of course. The mating bond between Lucien and Elain, while existing, and certainly bonding them to some degree, had not been made official, not in the midst of the chaos and war. But he knew enough of how it would go to know he need not nurture his hope in that regard.

He had thought a great deal in the last few months about how he really felt about Elain. One evening, just weeks before the war started in earnest, after walking her home from an impromptu concert in The Rainbow, he admitted to himself that he loved her. He’d had to duck his head, look away from her, to keep her from seeing the tears well in his eyes at this realization.

As they ascended the hill to the townhouse, Azriel was struck by how different this love was, like nothing he’d ever felt before. His love for Mor had been heavy, a weight laced with pain and longing. In this moment with Elain, he felt a lightness that threatened to send him into the clouds. He looked at her, the streetlights silhouetting the wisps of hair escaping her braid and was amazed at what he _didn’t_ feel. He felt no burden, no requirement, no pitiful acknowledgement of his wretched past. He needed nothing from her, wanted only for her to be happy, and that simple thought caused his face to widen into a smile, one rarely seen. They stopped at the townhouse door and he pulled her into an embrace, which she returned with a light hum of contentment. He felt dizzy being this close to her and pulled back just slightly to press a gentle kiss against her cheek.

He had been so lost in his own reverie that he hadn’t noticed her hands clutching his shirt tightly, nor her breath hitch as his lips brushed against her. Neither did he note that she licked her own lips and stared at his as he pulled away. Azriel, the spymaster who saw all, was so lost in his love of her that he’d not noticed she’d fallen in love with him.

Now, in the cottage, Elain noted Azriel’s hands nervously rubbing his knees, his body rhythmically rocking back and forth with the tiniest of motion. “Lucien came to say goodbye to you?”

Azriel stopped moving and stared into the fire. The log she’d pushed in was popping and crackling, the damp bark spitting red flame. He looked down at his hands resting on his knee and saw Lucien’s hand on top of his, felt his fingertips resting on his wrist, felt the heat of his palm searing his own cold skin. His throat constricted, and he nodded.

Elain leaned forward in her chair, the hem of her dress brushing against the top of Azriel’s boot as she laid her hand atop one of his, her fingertips resting on his wrist, just as Lucien’s had. “It’s so strange to love two people, isn’t it?”


	9. Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azriel and Elain discuss their feelings. We flash-forward to some major life events for Azriel, Elain, and Lucien.

“Did you know he loved her, too?”

Lucien straightened the stack of maps on his desk for the fourth time in the last hour. “Before I left? Yes, I knew. I honestly didn’t expect him to tell her, though. That certainly made things interesting when I returned.”

Nesta pushed her hair behind her ear and tapped her pen on the notebook edge. “With the bond, I can’t imagine how you didn’t want to destroy him. What did it feel like to you when you returned?”

“You have to remember that Elain and I never accepted the bond. Before I left, we talked about it. And we both agreed it wouldn’t be the right thing for us to do at that point which, believe me, was really difficult to say. But I knew she was right. We couldn’t let the bond dictate our lives. We had to let each other make choices and be free to find our own happiness. I wanted my happiness to lie with her, but I wanted it to be mutual, and by choice. And I knew then I also wanted Azriel to be a part of it. But still, it always felt like my head was trying to catch up with my heart. Still does sometimes.”

Lucien sat back in the chair and nodded agreement to his own mind, working through his thoughts. “I wanted to be better for her, first. I had so many things I hadn’t dealt with from my past, and I didn’t want to bring them into a relationship with her. I didn’t want to be something she felt she had to fix. And I’ve seen enough nightmarish relationships forged by the Cauldron to know the mating bond can be a curse. I wish I could say I was always true to these goals. That I was never an ass about it. In reality I have failed them both many times. But truthfully, the happiest days of my life have been the three of us, just being together.

* * *

 

“It’s so strange to love two people, isn’t it?”

Azriel’s shadows instantly swallowed him, the light of the fire disappearing into nothing. He stood and stumbled away, shaking the ghost of her handprint from his scarred skin.  “I’m sorry.”

“You are?”

“He’s your mate. I would never… I wouldn’t take that from either of you.”

She stood and smiled at him, almost amused. “No, I don’t believe you would.” His fingers were ice in her hand as she pressed his hand between hers more tightly, holding him in place. “But you love him. He loves you as well. And I think you know that.”

Azriel opened his mouth to speak but only managed to squeak instead, a sound no one will ever admit to hearing from him. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes.”

Seeing him so completely flustered endeared him to her more than she thought possible. “I wouldn’t take that from either of you, Azriel.” His eyes remained fixed on the stone mantle, tiny shadows flickering in and out of existence in the cracks. His hand slowly relaxed in hers. “He asked me if he should tell you before he left. I told him I didn’t know if he should say it, but to make sure you understood. To make sure he left knowing he’d given something to you.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

Elain turned from him, a small smile hiding behind her lips as she walked to the kitchen and filled a plate with small cakes filled with a sweet paste, an Illyrian dessert. She gestured for him to join her at the table. They sat eating in silence for a few minutes, his hands tracing the pattern of the wood grain on the table, and he began to wonder if he’d pushed it too far.

“I love the bond sometimes. There is a sense of security, knowing there is someone tied to you who would run to you in a heartbeat if you willed it. And there are feelings between us that I think are wholly unique to a mating bond, ones I can’t find words to explain. But there are times, Azriel, when the bond is nothing but a prison. Once you know it’s there, everything is colored by it. Is love real if it’s bound by something? I told Lucien I love him, but I will not be bound to love him. I will not belong to someone and I will not ask someone to belong to me. If our hearts find each other, then that is beautiful. I will not ask more of it.”

She took another bite and sipped her tepid tea before continuing. “No, Azriel. It does not bother me that you love each other. It makes me happier than I can say. I only want you both to be happy.” He looked into her eyes and she hoped he could see the truth in them.

He’d stopped eating when she spoke, the cake in his hand crumbling in his trembling fingers. He set the remainder down on the plate and took a deep breath before he spoke. “Who are your two people, then? You spoke as if you understood what it was to love two.”

Her heart lodged in her throat. _Why had she said it?_ “I’m sorry, Azriel. I shouldn’t have.”

He stood abruptly, the feet of the chair scraping loudly against the cottage floor. “Why not? Because it’s not true? Do you not love two?”

She shrank back as he stalked to her, an energy roiling around him that sent a shudder down her spine. Azriel stopped in front of her and pulled her chair out from the table, as if it were empty. And then he dropped to his knees before her, bracing his hands roughly on her thighs.

“Tell me.”

Her voice rasped, and she found it hard to breathe. But he heard her words well enough. “There are two.”

Azriel whispered now. “Who? I know you love Lucien. Who is the other?”

Of course he knew. _Who else could it be? Why force her to say it? It would only embarrass them both._ The room was too small. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and wait for him to leave. But she looked into his pleading eyes, wild with something she couldn’t name. “You. I love you, Azriel.”

A smile started to form on his face, but he bit his lip and loosened the grip on her legs, letting his fingers draw soothing circles. “And who do I love, Elain? Who are my two?”

“Lucien.”

“And…”

“Lucien and Mo-”

“-No. No. You’re wrong, Elain. You are right that I love two. Ask me who the other is. Ask me, Elain.”

He had somehow moved between her legs and his face hovered just inches from hers. His skin flushed and his scent - a swirling mix of earth and mountains -  intoxicated her, overwhelmed her other senses. She brought her hands up to rest lightly on his forearms. “Who is the other?”

He let the smile grow now, pulling the edges of his lips up and lighting up his eyes, glistening and bright. “You. I love you, Elain.”

Azriel had barely finished saying her name when his voice was swallowed by her mouth. He tasted dark and smokey and she devoured him in a frenzy. Her hands pulled at his clothes, scratched at his skin, and had the door not creaked open, she might have thrown him to the floor.

Nesta entered the cottage to find two very flushed and breathless fools staring back at her. She looked between the two of them, eyebrows rising higher with each observed detail, of their scents, of their chests’ heaving with labored breaths, of their hands dangling loosely at their sides, knuckles grazing. Elain braced herself for admonishment. “Nesta, I -”

Nesta held up a hand and sighed. “I’m tired.” She walked by them without another word and clicked shut the bedroom door behind her.

* * *

 

Elain’s breathing quickened, puffs of air drying Azriel’s sweat as quickly as it ran down his temple. Her fingers dug into his neck as she anchored him to her, a low, keening groan ripping from her throat. He steadied himself, shifted his hips for leverage, and murmured reassurances to her. “I’ve got you. I’m here.” His eyes drifted over her wild hair and met Lucien’s, whose skin had gone darker, taking on her energy, her pulse, through the bond. Lucien’s stare went through Azriel, lost in the immediate intensity of feeling.

Azriel smiled and reached across Elain to Lucien, tucking back the hair falling loose and wet over his face. This touch broke Lucien’s trance, drawing a smile in return. “Lucien.” Azriel’s whisper of his name drifted between the two of them, their eyes dark and glistening, their throats dry with gasping breaths, their blood pounding through them in awe of this moment.  Lucien’s fingers loosened their grip on Elain’s leg and he hooked his elbow under it, drawing it up tighter to her body.

“I need you.” She breathed it out to both of them, a plea and a promise.

“You’re doing so well, dove.”

Her body went limp again and her head rolled back as she steadied her breathing, readying herself for more. “You’re doing wonderful. The head is right here, Elain. On the next one, give a good deep push.”

A barely audible hum escaped her throat to acknowledge the midwife’s encouragement. Azriel found himself leaning forward to see, to catch a first glimpse of a new life. Elain’s hands wrenched him back with shockingly fierce strength as the next contraction ripped through her, and she bore down with an intensity that would impress the greatest warrior. Between the deep, guttural moans from Elain and the breathless murmuring from Lucien, Azriel could barely focus and remember his role. Every second was a chance for everything to fall apart and he felt the shadows of his mind creeping around him, reminding him that death awaited all. He shook them off and pressed his lips to her hair, breathing in the scents of her, of Lucien, of the birth waters coating the sheet beneath her legs.

As his focus narrowed, her sounds rose in pitch and he saw movement at her apex, a gush of fluids. And in the midwife’s hands, a head - wet and slick - and covered in black hair.  His breath left him. There was simply no room left in his body for it. His heart had expanded and filled him entirely at the sight before him. He turned to Elain and Lucien and found them locked in concentration, their bond taut and thrumming between them as he kept her from falling apart at this crucial moment: one final push to get the shoulders through.

And in that final push he saw the bumps, the tiny nubs where wings would form. He had known when he saw the hair, but this - this was...him. His mouth hung open, unable to form words.  Sounds became muted an underwater distortion, until Lucien’s hand on his shoulder pulled him back. “Az! Az!” He said it over and over, his face glowing and wet with tears.

“You did it, love.” Azriel pressed his forehead to Elain’s. Lucien was pressed to her other side, kissing her cheek through his own tears. Their hands joined over her and his body shook with sobs. She had pushed herself to her limit to bring forth life and here he was, collapsed on her, soaking her with his tears.

“She can’t hold you _and_ the baby, Az.” Lucien jested, another gentle attempt to pull him out of his churning emotions. Azriel pulled back and gasped when the midwife handed Elain the baby, the writhing purple, wrinkled child, whose smell instantly flooded his nostrils. Earth and rock and lavender and mountain winds. All that mattered was right before him. His family. His blood.

The past did not matter. Every moment of doubt and remorse was sediment in a stream, settling to the bottom as the water of his life rushed by. His child was here.

Azriel held his hand out and drew his index finger along the downy vernix of the baby’s back, a warm expanse of perfect skin. For the first time he did not see his own scars. As he touched his son, he saw only hands that would protect and hold and love. He would not have thought them worthy of such tasks until this moment.

* * *

 

Elain drooped against the back of the sofa, exhaustion etched in her entire body. Azriel slipped his hands under his son lying limp in her arms. He eased him onto his shoulder, unconcerned with the milk still pooling in the crease of the baby’s mouth after having passed out mid-meal. He had learned early on to never attempt such a thing without first having a cloth slung over his own shoulder. A minute of gentle swaying and patting released a soft burp, and like a small balloon deflating, he sunk into his father.

“Should we try to move her up to the bedroom?” Lucien rose from the sofa opposite her slumped form, but Azriel shook his head and spoke softly.

“No. Leave her. I don’t want to risk waking her. She needs the rest. Maybe bring a blanket for her, though.” Lucien retrieved a throw and gently tucked it under her chin before returning to the sofa where Azriel had settled.      

They sat in silence, the crackling of the fire the only sound in the room. Lucien broke it. “I think she knew. She knew who the father was before.”

Azriel shifted the baby higher up on his shoulder. “You think she had a vision?”

Lucien stretched his arm behind Azriel and rested it on his shoulder, his finger brushing the soft hair on the baby’s neck. “Maybe. Maybe it was just a feeling. But I could sense something in the bond when she talked to me about the baby. This sort of...nervous uncertainty. I don’t know how to explain it. She just seemed worried about me. I think maybe she was worried how I’d react.”

The burning wood in the fireplace popped, sending a shower of sparks onto the stones set in the floor. “I worried about that, too. How I’d react, I mean. Honestly, I never let myself believe it could be mine. Not with your bond. I’ve spent these years with you two just wondering when it was going to stop feeling like a dream, you know?”

Lucien’s hand drifted back to Azriel’s neck and he drew circles on his nape with the pads of his fingers, lazily swirling through his thick hair. Azriel’s head fell back, then turned to face Lucien. Lucien glowed faintly, a halo of light from the fireplace outlining him.

Azriel let his eyes flutter closed, a ghost of a smile resting on his lips. He waited. This had become something of a game for them. Early on, when it was all new and strange and crackling with wild energy, Lucien would wait until Azriel had just fallen asleep. And with utter stillness and silence, Lucien would kiss him. _You’re always watching. I want to know what it’s like when you’re not expecting it._

Lucien’s mouth was warm, his breath fire to Azriel’s cold, dark shadows. He pulled away just slightly and whispered. “I’m glad it was you. The world needs more good Illyrians.”

Elain watched them through hooded eyes, her three boys, the holders of her heart.


End file.
